ight of his pale, wan face.

"Bless me, boy!" she exclaimed, "but you do look bad. Whatever's the
matter?"

Geoff smiled a little--he looked very nice when he smiled; it was only
when he was in one of his ill-tempered moods that there was anything
unlovable in his face--and his smile made Mrs. Eames still more sorry
for him.

"There's nothing the matter, thank you," he said; "I'm only rather
cold--and wet. I'm strange to it all, I suppose. I wanted to know what I
should do next. Should I feed the pigs?"

"Have you met the master?" said the farmer's wife. "He's gone down the
fields with Matthew and the others. Didn't you meet 'em?"

Geoff shook his head.

"No; I went straight to the stable when I came back from the station."

"You'd better take off your wet jacket," she said. "There--hang it
before the fire. And," she went on, "there's a cup of coffee still hot,
you can have for your breakfast this morning as you're so cold--it'll
warm you better nor stir-about; and there's a scrap o' master's bacon
you can eat with your bread."

She poured out the coffee, steaming hot, and forked out the bacon from
the frying-pan as she spoke, and set all on the corner of the dresser
nearest to the fire.

"Thank you, thank you awfully," said Geoff. Oh, how good the coffee
smelt! He had never enjoyed a meal so much, and yet, had it been at
home, _how_ he would have grumbled! Coffee in a bowl, with brown
sugar--bread cut as thick as your fist, and no butter! Truly Geoff was
already beginning to taste some of the sweet uses of adversity.

Breakfast over, came the pigs. The farmer had left word that the sty was
to be cleaned out, and fresh straw fetched for the pigs' beds; and as
Betsy was much more good-natured than Matthew in showing the new boy
what was expected of him, he got on pretty well, even feeling a certain
pride in the improved aspect of the pig-sty when he had finished. He
would have dearly liked to try a scrubbing of the piggies themselves, if
he had not been afraid of Matthew's mocking him. But besides this there
was not time. At eleven the second lot of milk had to be carted to the
station, and with the remembrance of the cross porter Geoff dared not be
late. And in the still falling rain he set off again, though, thanks to
Mrs. Eames, with a dry jacket, and, thanks to her too, with a horse-rug
buckled round him, in which guise surely no one would have recognized
Master Geoffrey Tudor.

After dinner the farmer