They did not even shake hands; it is
a formality neglected in these parts except for long farewells or
unexpected meetings. Only she must take his bonnet and cane from him and
in each hand take them upstairs as if she were leading thus two little
children, her gaze fond upon the back of him.

"Well, auntie!" he said, showing at first no sign of the dejection she
had seen from the window. "Here I am again. I met the Captain up at the
inn door, and he seems to grudge me the occasional comfort of hearing
any other voice than my own. I could scarcely tell him as I can tell
you, that the bleating of the lambs gave me a sore heart. The very hills
are grieving with them. I'm a fine farmer, am I not? Are you not
vexed for me?" His lips could no longer keep his secret, their corners
trembled with the excess of his feeling.

She put a thin hand upon his coat lapel, and with the other picked
invisible specks of dust from his coat sleeve, her eyes revealing by
their moisture a ready harmony with his sentiment.

"Farmer indeed!" said she with a gallant attempt at badinage; "you're as
little for that, I'm afraid, as you're for the plough or the army."
She led him into her room and set a chair for him as if he had been a
prince, only to have an excuse for putting an arm for a moment almost
round his waist. She leaned over him as he sat and came as close as she
dared in contact with his hair, all the time a glow in her face.

"And what did you come down for?" she asked, expecting an old answer he
never varied in.

He looked up and smiled with a touch of mock gallantry wholly new. "To
see you, of course," said he, as though she had been a girl.

She was startled at this first revelation of the gallant in what till
now had been her child. She flushed to the coils above her ear. Then she
laughed softly and slapped him harmlessly on the back. "Get away with
you," she said, "and do not make fun of a douce old maiden!" She drew
back as she spoke and busily set about some household office, fearing,
apparently, that her fondness had been made too plain.

"Do you know what the Captain said?" he remarked in a tone less hearty,
moving about the room in a searching discontent.

"The old fool!" she answered irrelevantly, anticipating some
unpleasantness. "He went out this morning in a tiravee about a button
wanting from his waistcoat. It's long since I learned never to heed him
much."

It was a story invented on the moment; in heavenly a