Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: also another sound from the hidden Moor a strange, intermittent growl, as of some gigantic animal busy there. The muffled noise persisted, but its causes were hidden. Upon a ledge of rock in the midst of the tor sat a woman with a face at once anxious and comely. She was of middle height and of figure still maidenly in its uprightness, in its fair lines and firm, small bosom. None had guessed her the mother of five children,'or set her age at three and forty. Yet thus it was with her; and despite a life of ceaseless battle with harsh problems, she had retained a measure of physical youth corresponding with the native, unconquerable spirit that guided her difficult days. Clad in sombre colour, motionless upon the grey rock she sat a little human image of Demeter's self and her eyes were now bright, now brooding, as the thought behind them flashed with hope or sank upon gloom; and her mouth, with its sweet curves and quick lift at the corners, told by its tightness or sudden smile how a simple mind left the untrained muscles thus to reveal its progress openly. She passed from doubt to hope, from hope to happiness. Then again she fell on unquiet thoughts and wandered, by the familiar human byways and channels of desultory reflection, now through the shade and now into the sunshine of her affairs. Uncertainty and decision alternately dominated her mind; gladness and obvious sorrow played for mastery. She lifted her head, and then her lips parted in the shadow of smiles; she bent her head and sighed. Her hands were not still. Now they picked at the lichen crust of the stone where she sat; now they stroked her cheek thoughtfully; now they brought from her pocket a little scrap of paper conveying a message which she put away again. Alison Cleave was a fair woman with brigh...
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