e me.
Has it left off raining yet?"

She went to the front of the shed and looked out.

"No, it is still pelting; please come back; it is pouring off the roof;
your hair is quite wet again."

She laughed, but she obeyed.

"I suppose that gentleman, the man in the carriage, was a friend of Sir
Stephen's, as he asked the way to your house?"

"I don't know," replied Stafford. "I don't know any of my father's
friends. I knew very little of him until last night."

She looked at him with frank, girlish interest.

"Did you find the new house very beautiful?" she asked.

Stafford nodded.

"Yes," he said, absently. "It is a kind of--of palace. It's beautiful
enough--perhaps a little too--too rich," he admitted.

She smiled.

"But then, you are rich. And is it true that a number of visitors are
coming down? I heard it from Jessie."

"Who is Jessie?" he asked, for he was more interested in the smallest
detail of this strange, bewilderingly lovely girl's life than his
father's affairs.

"Jessie is my maid. I call her mine, because she is very much attached
to me; but she is really our house-maid, parlour-maid. We have very few
servants: I suppose you have a great many up at the new house?"

He nodded.

"Oh, yes," he said, half apologetically. "Too many by far. I wish you
could, see it," he added.

She laughed softly.

"Thank you; but that is not likely. I think it is not raining so hard
now, and that I can go."

"It is simply pouring still," he said, earnestly and emphatically. "You
would get drenched if you ventured out."

"But I can't stay here all day," she remarked, with a laugh. "I have a
great deal to do: I have to see that the sheep have not strayed, and
that the cows are in the meadows; the fences are bad in places, and the
stupid creatures are always straying. It is wonderful how quickly a cow
finds a weak place in a fence."

Stafford's face grew red, a brick-dust red.

"It's not fit work for you," he said. "You--you are only a girl; you
can't be strong enough to face such weather, to do such work."

The beautiful eyes grew wide and gazed at him with girlish amusement,
and something of indignation.

"I'm older than you think. I'm not a girl!" she retorted. "And I am as
strong as a horse." She drew herself up and threw her head back. "I am
never tired--or scarcely ever. One day I rode to Keswick and back, and
when I got home Jason met me at the gate and told me that the steers
had 'broken' an