inclemency of the time.
It never occurred to her that she could have put off this exacting job.
She would sooner have expected Heaven to put off the weather. Just as
she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted her pail of refuse over
the edge, a man appeared from the other side of the house, and stood
confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his deeply graven face was
framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid thought that he was not so
old as he looked; experience, rather than years, must have wrought its
trace upon him. He was leading a little girl, dressed with a very patent
regard for warmth, and none for beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine
glance, noted that the child's bungled skirt and hideous waist had been
made from an old army overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were sweet
and seeking; they seemed to petition for something. Amelia's heart did
not respond at that time, she had no reason for thinking she was fond of
children. Yet she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the pair. She
afterwards explained it adequately to the man, by asserting that they
looked as odd as Dick's hatband.

"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's
lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and rugged.
It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt impressed, she
was conscious of little more than her own cold and stiffness, and she
answered sharply,--

"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' then
I don't take tramps."

The man dropped the child's hand, and pushed her gently to one side.

"Stan' there, Rosie," said he. Then he went forward, and drew the pail
from Amelia's unwilling grasp. "Where do you empt' it?" he asked.
"There? It ought to be carried further. You don't want to let it gully
down into that beet bed. Here, I'll see to it."

Perhaps this was the very first time in Amelia's life that a man had
offered her an unpaid service for chivalry alone. And somehow, though
she might have scoffed, knowing what the tramp had to gain, she believed
in him and in his kindliness. The little girl stood by, as if she were
long used to doing as she had been told, with no expectation of
difficult reasons; and the man, as soberly, went about his task. He
emptied the cistern, and cleansed it, with plentiful washings. Then, as
if guessing by instinct what he should find, he went into the kitchen,
where were two tubs full of the water which Amel