t I suppose he would only have done it all the more.'

'You want to make friends with him yourself, Ellen! We shall have you
nodding to him next! You are as curious about him as can be!' said
Alfred slyly.

'Me! I never was curious about nothing so insignificant,' said Ellen.
'All I wish is, that that boy may not be running into bad company.'

The hay-fields were like an entertainment on purpose for Alfred all day;
he watched the shaking of the brown grass all over the meadows in the
morning, and the farmer walking over it, and smelling it, and spying up
to guess what would come of the great rolling towers of grey clouds edged
with pearly white, soft but dazzling, which varied the intense blue of
the sky.

Then he watched all the company sit or lie down on the shady side of the
hedge, under the pollard-willows, and Tom Boldre the shuffler and one or
two more go into the farm-house, and come out with great yellow-ware with
pies in them, and the little sturdy-looking kegs of beer, and two mugs to
go round among them all. There was Harold lying down, quite at his ease,
close to the strange boy; Alfred knew how much better that dinner would
taste to him than the best with the table-cloth neatly spread in his
mother's kitchen; and well did Alfred remember how much more enjoyment
there was in such a meal as that, than in any one of the dainties that my
Lady sent down to tempt his sickly appetite. And what must pies and beer
be to the wanderer who had eaten the crust so greedily the day before!
Then, after the hour's rest, the hay-makers rose up to rake the hay into
beds ready for the waggons. Harold and the stranger were raking opposite
to each other, and Alfred could see them talking; and when they came into
the nearer hay-field, he saw Harold put up his hand, and point to the
open window, as if he were telling the other lad about the sick boy who
was lying there.

He was so much absorbed in thus watching, that he did not pay much heed
to what interested his mother and sister--the reports which came by every
customer about the new clergyman, who, it appeared, had been staying in
the next parish till yesterday, when he had moved into the Rectory; and
Mrs. Bonham, the butcher's wife, reported that the Rectory servants said
he was come to stay till their master came back. All this and much more
Mrs. King heard and rehearsed to Ellen, while Alfred lay, sometimes
reading the 'Swiss Robinson,' sometimes watching the loa