seem to take to it, nor yet
Agnetta, and our hands is full outside."

"I like the chickens and ducks and things," said Lilac. "I wish Aunt'd
let me take 'em in hand."

Peter reared himself up from his bent position, and holding the big
nosegay in one hand looked gravely down at his cousin.

It was a good long distance from his height to Lilac, and she seemed
wonderfully small and slender and delicately coloured as she stood there
in her straight black frock and long pinafore. She had taken off her
sun bonnet, so that her little white face with all the hair fastened
back from it was plainly to be seen. It struck Peter as strange that
such a small creature should talk of taking any more work "in hand"
besides what she had to do already.

"You hadn't ought to do hard work," he said at length; "you haven't got
the strength."

"I don't mind the work," said Lilac, drawing up her little figure. "I'm
stronger nor what I look. 'Taint the work as I mind--" She stopped, and
her eyes filled suddenly with tears.

Peter saw them with the greatest alarm. Somehow with his usual
stupidity he had made his cousin cry. All he could do now was to take
himself away as quickly as possible. He went up to Sober and touched
him gently with his foot.

"Come along, old chap," he said. "We've got to look after the lambs
yonder."

Without another word or a glance at Lilac he rolled away through the
orchard with the dog at his heels, his great shoulders plunging along
through the trees, and Lilac's gay bunch of flowers swinging in one
hand. He had quite forgotten to give it to her.

She looked after him in surprise, with the tears still in her eyes.
Then a smile came.

"He's a funny one surely," she said to herself. "Why ever did he make
off like that?"

There was no one to answer except Tib, who had jumped up into a tree and
looked down at her with the most complete indifference.

"Anyway, he means to be kind," concluded Lilac, "and it's a shame to
flout him as they do, so it is."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

ONLY A CHILD!

"Who is the honest man?
He who doth still and strongly good pursue,
To God, his neighbour and himself most true,
Whom neither force nor fawning can
Unpin or wrench from giving all his due."
_G. Herbert_.

Joshua Snell had by no means forgotten his little friend Lilac. There
were indeed many occasions in his solitary life when he missed her a
great deal, and felt that his days were duller.