ning, churning for dear life. Her sleeves were rolled above her
elbows, and her skirt was kilted high; and, as she looked back over her
shoulder and saw the Duke, there was the flush of roses in her cheeks,
and the light of a thousand thanks in her eyes. 'Oh,' she cried, 'what
a curtsey I would drop you, but that to let go the handle were to spoil
all!' And every morning, ever after, she woke when the birds woke, rose
when they rose, and went singing through the dawn to the dairy, there to
practise for her pleasure that sweet and lowly handicraft which she had
once practised for her need. And every evening, with her milking-stool
under her arm, and her milk-pail in her hand, she went into the field
and called the cows to her, as she had been wont to do. To those other,
those so august, accomplishments she no more pretended. She gave them
the go-by. And all the old zest and joyousness of her life came back
to her. Soundlier than ever slept she, and sweetlier dreamed, under the
fine silk canopy, till the birds called her to her work. Greater than
ever was her love of the fine furbelows that were hers to flaunt in, and
sharper her appetite for the fine hot dishes, and more tempestuous her
scolding of Betty, poor maid. She was more than ever now the cynosure,
the adored, of the fine young gentlemen. And as for her husband, she
looked up to him as the wisest, kindest man in all the world."

"And the fine young gentlemen," said Zuleika, "did she fall in love with
any of them?"

"You forget," said the Duke coldly, "she was married to a member of my
family."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. But tell me: did they ALL adore her?"

"Yes. Every one of them, wildly, madly."

"Ah," murmured Zuleika, with a smile of understanding. A shadow crossed
her face, "Even so," she said, with some pique, "I don't suppose she had
so very many adorers. She never went out into the world."

"Tankerton," said the Duke drily, "is a large house, and my
great-great-grandfather was the most hospitable of men. However," he
added, marvelling that she had again missed the point so utterly, "my
purpose was not to confront you with a past rival in conquest, but to
set at rest a fear which I had, I think, roused in you by my somewhat
full description of the high majestic life to which you, as my bride,
would be translated."

"A fear? What sort of a fear?"

"That you would not breathe freely--that you would starve (if I may use
a somewhat fantastic figure) am