r pretty frock cleaner than trapesing round. Of
course," he said, with a quick transition to the gentlest courtesy, "if
you're conscientious about this thing we'll go on and not spare a cow.
Consider me in it with you for the whole morning."

She looked at him again, and then suddenly broke into a charming laugh.
It revealed a set of strong white teeth, as well as a certain barbaric
trace in its cadence which civilized restraint had not entirely
overlaid.

"I suppose she really is a peasant, in spite of that pretty frock," he
said to himself as he laughed too.

But her face presently took a shade of reserve, and with a gentle but
singular significance she said:

"I think you must see the dairy."

Hoffman's hat was in his hand with a vivacity that tumbled the brown
curls on his forehead. "By all means," he said instantly, and began
walking by her side in modest but easy silence. Now that he thought her
a conscientious peasant he was quiet and respectful.

Presently she lifted her eyes, which, despite her gravity, had not
entirely lost their previous mirthfulness, and said:

"But you Americans--in your rich and prosperous country, with your large
lands and your great harvests--you must know all about farming."

"Never was in a dairy in my life," said Hoffman gravely. "I'm from
the city of New York, where the cows give swill milk, and are kept in
cellars."

Her eyebrows contracted prettily in an effort to understand. Then she
apparently gave it up, and said with a slanting glint of mischief in her
eyes:

"Then you come here like the other Americans in hope to see the Grand
Duke and Duchess and the Princesses?"

"No. The fact is I almost tumbled into a lot of 'em--standing like wax
figures--the other side of the park lodge, the other day--and got away
as soon as I could. I think I prefer the cows."

Her head was slightly turned away. He had to content himself with
looking down upon the strong feet in their serviceable but smartly
buckled shoes that uplifted her upright figure as she moved beside him.

"Of course," he added with boyish but unmistakable courtesy, "if it's
part of your show to trot out the family, why I'm in that, too. I dare
say you could make them interesting."

"But why," she said with her head still slightly turned away toward
a figure--a sturdy-looking woman, which, for the first time, Hoffman
perceived was walking in a line with them as the chasseur had done--"why
did you come here at a