Eustacia. She vented petulant words every now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden listenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go the whole way. 

 Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she said— 

 “Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?” 

 “No, Miss Eustacia,” the child replied. 

 “Well,” she said at last, “I shall soon be going in, and then I will give you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home.” 

 “Thank’ee, Miss Eustacia,” said the tired stoker, breathing more easily. And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time not towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the wicket before the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the scene. 

 Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the fire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at a time, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly watched him as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood beside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child’s hair, and the corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction; the breeze died, and the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went up straight. 

 While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy’s form visibly started—he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate. 

 “Well?” said Eustacia. 

 “A hopfrog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard ’en!” 

 “Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not be afraid?” She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her throat at the boy’s words. 

 “No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence.” 

 “Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can—not that way—through the garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as yours.” 

 The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away into the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her telescope and hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket towards the angle of the bank, under the fire. 

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