Page:Fletcher--Where Highways Cross.djvu/79

. She was young and should have had few cares, Hepworth thought. He knew little of sorrow himself, and was therefore not altogether fitted to judge of it in others, but he was persuaded that Elisabeth's trouble was of an exceptional nature and was exercising a great influence upon her.

During the afternoon of the next day Hepworth was passing through the upper fold when he heard the sound of a woman's voice singing in one of the buildings. He stopped and listened wonderingly. The voice was clear and high—the tune a merry one. Everything about the farmstead at that moment was quiet and hushed—the day had reached that mystic point where the afternoon begins to melt towards evening. The men were working in the Ten-Acre; there was nobody about the place but Mally and Elisabeth and himself; therefore it must be from Elisabeth that the song came. He walked across the fold in the direction of the barn and pushed open the door and looked in. After the first