uilt-up banks to the dam and then down a succession of wooden troughs
to the crest of the wheel. Facing the mill was the great cluster of elms
that headed the valley, and behind only a tiny little yard divided it
from the steepness of the hillside. The trees were the biggest for miles
in that wind-swept district, and the bed of the valley showed green and
lush with its marshy pastures, where the ugly red and white cows were
tearing at the grass. The wheel was standing dumb, as harvest was not
yet garnered, and Boase and Ishmael passed the mill door and went on to
the house. There the door stood open, as did the further one at the end
of the cool, straight passage that looked dark by contrast with the yard
beyond, where, under the blazing sun, a little girl was feeding some
fowls. The whole scene, set in the black oblong of the doorway, was
compact of blue and flame colour--the blue of the frock and the shadows
and the pale flame of the gravel where the shadows lay and the deeper
flame fowls clustered. The man and the boy looked through for a moment
in silence, then Phoebe turned and saw them.

Phoebe Lenine, being a woman of some eight years old, shook the
remains of the corn off her small blue lap with no signs of haste or
discomposure, and, turning her back, called to a hidden corner of the
yard.

"Faether! Faether! Passon's come to see you!"

"How d'you know I haven't called to see you, Miss Phoebe?" asked
Boase, stepping into the passage. She ran and seized him by the knees,
flinging back her head so that her dark curls hung away from her
softly-rounded face. Her pouting mouth, always slightly open to show a
hint of two little front teeth, laughed up at him, her dove's eyes
narrowed with her mirth. Of Ishmael she took no more notice than if he
had not been there, and he leant against the doorpost, scraping the
earth with the toe of his hard little boot, his thumbs stuck in his
belt.

"I be gwain to help cry the Neck over to Cloom!" announced Phoebe--to
the Parson and at Ishmael--"and I be gwain to stay to th' supper, and
maybe I'll dance wi' a chap. There's Maister Jacka's John-Willy would be
proud to dance wi' I!"

"So you're fond of dancing, Phoebe?" asked the Parson.

"Sure 'nough! Dancen' and singen'--that's life, that is. Ef you can't
dance and sing I don't see no good in liven'! I don't hold wi' chaps who
think of nawthen but wanten' to be saved. Time 'nough for that when
gettin' on for thirty!"

Ishm