disappeared. In a minute another figure appeared, a small, frail woman,
rosy, with great dark brown eyes.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, smiling with a little glow, "you've come, then. I
AM glad to see you." Her voice was intimate and rather sad.

The two women shook hands.

"Now are you sure we're not a bother to you?" said Mrs. Morel. "I know
what a farming life is."

"Oh no! We're only too thankful to see a new face, it's so lost up
here."

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Morel.

They were taken through into the parlour--a long, low room, with a great
bunch of guelder-roses in the fireplace. There the women talked, whilst
Paul went out to survey the land. He was in the garden smelling the
gillivers and looking at the plants, when the girl came out quickly to
the heap of coal which stood by the fence.

"I suppose these are cabbage-roses?" he said to her, pointing to the
bushes along the fence.

She looked at him with startled, big brown eyes.

"I suppose they are cabbage-roses when they come out?" he said.

"I don't know," she faltered. "They're white with pink middles."

"Then they're maiden-blush."

Miriam flushed. She had a beautiful warm colouring.

"I don't know," she said.

"You don't have MUCH in your garden," he said.

"This is our first year here," she answered, in a distant, rather
superior way, drawing back and going indoors. He did not notice, but
went his round of exploration. Presently his mother came out, and they
went through the buildings. Paul was hugely delighted.

"And I suppose you have the fowls and calves and pigs to look after?"
said Mrs. Morel to Mrs. Leivers.

"No," replied the little woman. "I can't find time to look after cattle,
and I'm not used to it. It's as much as I can do to keep going in the
house."

"Well, I suppose it is," said Mrs. Morel.

Presently the girl came out.

"Tea is ready, mother," she said in a musical, quiet voice.

"Oh, thank you, Miriam, then we'll come," replied her mother, almost
ingratiatingly. "Would you CARE to have tea now, Mrs. Morel?"

"Of course," said Mrs. Morel. "Whenever it's ready."

Paul and his mother and Mrs. Leivers had tea together. Then they
went out into the wood that was flooded with bluebells, while fumy
forget-me-nots were in the paths. The mother and son were in ecstasy
together.

When they got back to the house, Mr. Leivers and Edgar, the eldest
son, were in the kitchen. Edgar was about eighteen. Then Geoffrey and
Maurice,