She is unhurried and unharried, dreaming idly of the unseen over the next rise.
Her thin slippers provide otherwise little succor to her feet, but she is unconcerned.
The cow-path is soft with sweet straw and the day is pleasantly warming.
Her leisurely progress at last carries her past the mill with its masonry sunk and mossy. Its working brook is lazy and placid, the water dark and thick and golden with afternoon reflections.
A touch of smoke in the air tickles her nose and voices, unintelligible and swelling from the as yet unrevealed dell where her family dwells, just over a near knoll.