opened its white bloom the first of all: in its shelter
the birds built their nests. The chaffinches called cheerfully on the
plum-trees and sang in the early morning. When the apples bloomed, the
goldfinches visited the same trees at least once a day.

A damask rose opened its single petals, the sweetest-scented of all
the roses; there were a few strawberries under the wall of the house;
by-and-by the pears above enlarged, and the damsons were coated with
the bloom. On the tall plum-trees hung the large purplish-red plums:
upon shaking the tree, one or two came down with a thud. The branches
of the damsons depended so low, looking, as it were, right into the
court and pressing the fruit against your very face as you entered,
that you could not choose but take some when it was ripe. A
blue-painted barrel-churn stood by the door; young Aaron turned it in
the morning, while the finches called in the plum-trees, but now and
then not all the strength of his sturdy shoulders nor patient hours of
turning could 'fetch' the butter, for a witch had been busy.

Sometimes on entering the dairy in the familiar country way, you might
find Cicely, now almost come to womanhood, at the cheese-tub. As she
bent over it her rounded arms, bare nearly to the shoulder, were laved
in the white milk. It must have been from the dairy that Poppaea
learned to bathe in milk, for Cicely's arms shone white and smooth,
with the gleam of a perfect skin. But Mrs. Luckett would never let her
touch the salt, which will ruin the hands. Cicely, however, who would
do something, turned the cheeses in the cheese-room alone. Taking one
corner of the clean cloth in her teeth, in a second, by some dexterous
sleight-of-hand, the heavy cheese was over, though ponderous enough to
puzzle many a man, especially as it had to come over gently that the
shape might not be injured.

She did it without the least perceptible exertion. At the moment of
the turn, when the weight must have been felt, there was no knot of
muscle visible on her arm. That is the difference; for

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw

the muscles of the man's limb knot themselves and stand out in bold
relief. The smooth contour of Cicely's arm never varied. Mrs. Luckett,
talking about cheese as we watched Cicely one morning, said people's
taste have much altered; for she understood they were now fond of a
foreign sort that was full of holes. The old saying was that bread
shou