ather was precisely
what mid-May weather ought to be, perfumed and softly fresh, with
opposing hints of gaiety and languor in it. The birds were singing
everywhere--a vocal storm, and the sheep--who can never express
themselves as being satisfied in any weather--bleated disconsolately
from the meadows. The clucking of fowls, the quacking of ducks, the very
occasional grunt of some contented porker in the backward regions of
the place, the stamp of a horse's foot, and the rattle of a chain in
a manger-ring--sounds quite unmusical in themselves--blended with the
birds' singing, and the thick humming of the bees, into an actual music
in which no note was discordant. The day was without a cloud, and the
soft light was diffused everywhere on a skyey haze of whitish blue.

In this positively delightful weather, Bertha stood with folded hands
in the porch of the Oak House (the floor and the far wall of the kitchen
behind her patched with gleams of red and brown light), like the central
figure of a picture framed in live green. She was pretty enough to be
pleasant to look at; but her charms were mainly the growth of tranquil
good temper and sound sense. Broad brow, gray eyes, resolute little
chin, the mouth the best feature of the face, her expression thoughtful,
serene, and self-possessed, the gray eyes a trifle inclined to dream
wide-awake, hair of no particular colour, but golden in the sunlight.
She stood leaning sideways, with one shoulder touching the trellis-work
of the porch, and one pretty little foot crossed over the other, her
head poised sideways and nestled into the ivy. She was looking far away,
seeing nothing, and her folded hands drooped before her. A bridge, with
a hand-rail on either side of it, crossed the stream and led from a
meadow path to the garden. This meadow path was hidden--partly by the
garden wall, and partly by the growth of alder and pollard at the side
of the stream--and a man came marching along it, unobserved. Before he
reached the bridge he brought his footsteps to a sudden halt, and sent a
glance towards the porch. Seeing the girl there, sunk in day dreams, he
slipped back into the shelter of the withies and took a good long look
at her. Twice or thrice, though his feet did not quit the ground, he
made a faint movement to go on again, and at length, after two or three
minutes of indecision, he walked briskly to the foot of the bridge,
threw open the little gate at the end of it, and, sufferin