animal with a more beautiful eye than the
cow--following Cicely's motions. At this time of the year, as they
grazed far from the pens, the herd were milked in the corner of the
field, instead of driving them to the yard.

One afternoon Cicely came quietly through a gap in the hedge by this
particular corner, thinking to laugh at Aaron's voice, for he milked
there and sang to the cows, when she saw him sitting on the
three-legged milking-stool, stooping in the attitude of milking, with
the bucket between his knees, but firm asleep, and quite alone in his
glory. He had had too much ale, and dropped asleep while milking the
last cow, and the herd had left him and marched away in stately single
file down to the pond, as they always drink after the milking. Cicely
stole away and said nothing; but presently Aaron was missed and a
search made, and he was discovered by the other men still sleeping.
Poor 'young Aaron' got into nearly as much disgrace through the brown
jug as a poaching uncle of his through his ferrets and wires.

When the moon rose full and lit up the Overboro'-road as bright as
day, and the children came out from the cottages to their play,
Cicely, though she did not join, used to watch their romping dances
and picked up the old rhymes they chanted. When the full moon shone in
at her bedroom window, Cicely was very careful to turn away or cover
her face; for she had heard one of the mowers declare that after
sleeping on the hay in the moonlight one night he woke up in the
morning almost blind. Besides the meadows around Lucketts' Place, she
sometimes wandered further to the edge of Hilary's great open arable
fields, where the green corn, before it came out in ear, seemed to
flutter, flutter like innumerable tiny flags, as the wind rushed over
it.

She learned to rub the ripe ears in her hands to work the grain out of
the husk, and then to winnow away the chaff by letting the corn slowly
drop in a stream from one palm to the other, blowing gently with her
mouth the while. The grain remained on account of its weight, the
chaff floating away, and the wheat, still soft though fully formed,
could thus be pleasantly tasted. The plaintive notes of the
yellowhammer fell from the scanty trees of the wheat-field hedge,
and the ploughboy who was put there to frighten away the rooks told
her the bird said, repeating the song over and over again, 'A little
bit of bread and _no_ cheese.' And indeed these syllables, with a