in my life," he said, eagerly, and
yet with an attempt to conceal his earnestness. "I am asking it as a
favour, I am indeed! I shall be here for weeks, months, perhaps, and I
should be bored to death--"

"With your father's house full of visitors?" she put in, softly, and
with a smile breaking through her gravity.

"Oh, they'll amuse themselves," he said. "At any rate, I sha'n't be
with them all day; and I'd ever so much rather help you than dance
attendance on them."

She pushed the short silky curls from her temples, and shook her head.

"Of course it's ridiculous," she said, with a girlish laugh; "and it's
impossible, too."

"Oh, is it?" he retorted. "I've never yet found anything I wanted to do
impossible."

"You always have your own way?" she asked.

"By hook or by crook," he replied.

"But why do you want to--help me?" she asked. "Do you think you would
find it amusing? You wouldn't." The laughter shone in her eyes again.
"You would soon grow tired of it. It is not like hunting or fishing or
golfing; it's work that tries the temper--I never knew what a fiendish
temper I had got about me until the first time I had to drive a cow and
calf."

"My temper couldn't be worse," he remarked, calmly. "Howard says that
sometimes I could give points to the man possessed with seven devils."

"Who is Mr. Howard?" she asked.

"My own particular chum," he said. "He came down with me and is up at
the house now. But never mind Howard; are you going to let me help you
as if I were an old friend or a--brother? Or are you going to be unkind
enough to refuse?"

She began to feel driven, and her brows knit as she said:

"I think you are very--obstinate, Mr. Orme."

"That describes me exactly," he said, cheerfully. "I'm a perfect mule
when I like, and I'm liking it all I know at this moment."

"It's absurd--it's ridiculous, as I said," she murmured, half angrily,
half laughingly, "and I can't think why you offered, why you want
to--to help me!"

"Never mind!" said Stafford, his heart beating with anticipatory
triumph; for he knew that the woman who hesitates is gained. "Perhaps I
want to get some lessons in farming on the cheap, or--"

--"Perhaps you really want to help the poor girl who, though she is a
lady, has to do the work of a farmer's daughter," she said, in a low
voice. "Oh, it is very kind of you, but--"

"Then I'll come over to-morrow an hour earlier than this, and you shall
show me how to count the she