h a heated face. "She's off for
goodness knows how long, and a batch of loaves burning in the oven, and
your uncle wanting his tea sent down into the field. Why ever should
they want to go swarmin' now in that contrairy way?"

She opened the oven door and took out the bread as she spoke.

"Now, don't you go running off, Lilac," she continued. "There's enough
of 'em out there to settle all the bees as ever was. You get your
uncle's tea and take it out, and Peter's too. They won't neither of 'em
be in till supper. Hurry now."

The last words were added simply from habit, for she had soon discovered
that it was impossible to hurry Lilac. What she did was well and
thoroughly done, but not even the example which surrounded her at
Orchards Farm could make her in a bustle. The whole habit of her life
was too strong within her to be altered. Mrs Greenways glanced at her
a little impatiently as she steadily made the tea, poured it into a tin
can, and cut thick hunches of bread and butter. "I could a done it
myself in, half the time," she thought; but she was obliged to confess
that Lilac's preparations if slow were always sure, and that she never
forgot anything.

Lilac tilted her sunbonnet well forward and set out, walking slowly so
as not to spill the tea. How blazing the sun was, though it was now
nearly four o'clock. In the distance she could see the end of her
journey, the big bare field beyond the orchard full of busy figures. As
she passed the kitchen garden, Molly, rushing back from her encounter
with the bees, almost ran against her.

"There was two on 'em," she cried, her good-natured face shining with
triumph and the heat of her exertions; "and we've housed 'em both
beautiful. Lor'! ain't it hot?"

She stood with her iron weapons hanging down on each side, quite ready
for a chat to delay her return to the house. Molly was always
cheerfully ready to undertake any work that was not strictly her own.
Lilac felt sorry, as they went on their several ways, to think of the
scolding that was waiting for her; but it was wasted pity, for Molly's
shoulders were broad, and a scolding more or less made no manner of
difference to them.

There were all sorts and sizes of people at work in the hayfield as
Lilac passed through it. Machines had not yet come into use at
Danecross, so that the services of men, women, and children were much in
request at this busy time. The farmer, remembering the motto, was
dete