and poking them occasionally, and talking to them in that mystic
language which only oxen and their drivers understand. Down the sweet
country lane they went, with the willows hanging over them, and the
daisies and buttercups and meadow-sweet running riot all over the banks.
Hilda stood up in the cart and pulled off twigs from the willows as she
passed under them, and made garlands, which the farmer obediently put
over the oxen's necks. She hummed little snatches of song, and chatted
gayly with her kind old host; for the world was very fair, and her heart
was full of summer and sunshine.

"And have you always lived here, Farmer Hartley?" she asked. "All your
life, I mean?"

"No, not all my life," replied the farmer, "though pooty nigh it. I was
ten year old when my uncle died, and father left sea-farin', and kem
home to the farm to live. Before that we'd lived in different places,
movin' round, like. We was at sea a good deal, sailin' with father when
he went on pleasant voyages, to the West Indies, or sich. But sence then
I ain't ben away much. I don't seem to find no pleasanter place than the
old farm, somehow."

"I don't believe there _is_ any pleasanter place in the world!" said
Hilda, warmly. "I am sure I have never been so happy anywhere as I have
here."

Farmer Hartley looked up with a twinkle in his eye. "Ye've changed yer
views some, Huldy, hain't ye, sence the fust day ye kem heer? I didn't
never think, then, as I'd be givin' you rides in the hay-riggin', sech a
fine young lady as you was."

Hilda gave him an imploring glance, while the blood mounted to her
temples. "Please, Farmer Hartley," she said in a low voice, "please try
to forget that first day. It isn't my views that have changed," she
added, "it is I myself. I don't--I really don't _think_ I am the same
girl who came here a month ago."

"No, my gal," said the farmer, heartily, "I don't think ye are." He
walked along in silence for a few minutes, and then said, "'Tis curus
how folks kin sometimes change 'emselves, one way or the other. 'Tain't
so with critturs; 't least so fur's I've obsarved. The way they're born,
that way they'll stay. Now look at them oxen! When they was young
steers, hardly more'n calves, I began to train them critturs. An' from
the very fust go-off they tuk their cue an' stuck to it. Star, thar,
would lay out, and shake his head, an' pull for all he was wuth, as if
there was nothin' in the world to do _but_ pull; and Brigh