ead and cheese and
cider, and was inclined to be huffy when Harold declined the latter,
and looked satirical when he repaired to wash his hands at the pump
before touching the former. When he saw two more hours go by in work
of which he could judge, his furrowed old brow grew less puckered, and
he came out again to request Mr. Harold to partake of the mid-day meal.
I fancy Harold's going up to Phil's room, to make himself respectable
for Mrs. Ogden's society, was as strange to the farmer as were to the
Australian the good wife's excuses for making him sit down with the
family in the kitchen; but I believe that during the meal he showed
himself practical farmer enough to win their respect; and when he
worked harder than ever all the afternoon, even till the last moment it
was possible to see, and came back with the light the next morning, he
had won his cause; above all, when the hunt swept by without disturbing
the labour.

The farmer not only turned in his scanty supply of men to help to
finish off the labour, and seconded contrivances which the day before
he would have scouted, but he gave his own bowed back to the work. A
pavement of the court which had not seen the day for forty years was
brought to light; and by a series of drain tiles, for which a messenger
was dispatched to the pottery, streams were conducted from the river to
wash these up; and at last, when Harold appeared, after Eustace had
insisted on waiting no longer for dinner, he replied to our eager
questions, "Yes, it is done."

"And Ogden?"

"He thanked me, shook hands with me, and said I was a man."

Which we knew meant infinitely more than a gentleman.

Harold wanted to spend Thursday in banking up the pond in the centre of
the yard, but the idea seemed to drive Eustace to distraction. Such
work before going to that sublime region at Erymanth! He laid hold of
Harold's hands--shapely hands, and with that look of latent strength
one sees in some animals, but scarred with many a seam, and horny
within the fingers--and compared them with those he had nursed into
dainty delicacy of whiteness, till Harold could not help saying, "I
wouldn't have a lady's fingers."

"I would not have a clown's," said Eustace.

"Keep your gloves on, Harold, and do not make them any worse. If you
go out to that place to-day, they won't even be as presentable as they
are."

"I shall wash them."

"Wash! As if oceans of Eau-de-Cologne would make them fit for
soc