IV
EVERY morning throughout November it was the same. At six o'clock: “Miss Peake! Oh, Miss Peake!”
“I’m up!” Selina would call in what she meant to be a gay voice, through chattering teeth.
“You better come down and dress where is warm here by the stove.”
Peering down the perforations in the floor-hole through which the parlour chimney swelled so proudly into the drum, Selina could vaguely descry Mrs. Pool stationed just below, her gaze upturned.
That first morning, on hearing this invitation, Selina had been rocked between horror and mirth. “I’m not cold, really. I’m almost dressed. I'll be down directly.”
Maartje Pool must have sensed some of the shock in the girl’s voice; or, perhaps, even some of the laughter. “Pool and Jakob are long out already cutting. Here back of the stove you can dress warm.”
Shivering and tempted though she was, Selina had set her will against it. A little hardening of the muscles around her jaw so that they stood out whitely beneath the fine-grained skin. “I won’t go down,” she said to herself, shaking with the cold. “I won’t come
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