signs of
this state of things, she took for granted it would grow.

When the expected caller did come, Sophia, because the servant could
still do but little, was at work in the dairy, and she sent one of the
children to ask him to come into the yard. The dairy was a pleasant
place; it was a long low stone room, with two doors opening on the green
yard. The roof of it was shaded by a tree planted for that purpose, and
not many feet from its end wall the cool blue river ran. A queen could
not have had a sweeter place for an audience chamber, albeit there was
need of paint and repairs, and the wooden doorstep was almost worn away.

Sophia, churn-handle in hand, greeted her visitor without apology. She
had expected that this churn-handle, the evidence of work to be done,
would act as a check upon feeling, but she saw with little more than a
glance that such check was superfluous; there was no sign of
intoxication from the wine of graciousness which she had held to his
lips when last she saw him. As he talked to her he stood on the short
white clover outside the door's decaying lintel. He had a good deal to
say about Bates, and more about Sissy Cameron, and Sophia found that she
had a good deal to say in answer.

The churn was a hideous American patent, but light and very convenient.
They talked to the monotonous splash of the milk within, and as work was
not being interrupted, Alec was at length asked to sit down on the worn
doorstep, and he remained there until the butter "came." He had gone up
in Sophia's esteem many degrees, because she saw now that any escape of
warmer sentiment had been involuntary on his part. She blessed him in
her heart for being at once so susceptible and so strong. She fancied
that there was a shade of sadness in his coolness which lent it
attraction. With that shadow of the epicurean which is apt to be found
upon all civilised hearts, she felt that it did her good to realise how
nice he was, just as a fresh flower or a strong wind would have done her
good. She said to him that she supposed he would not be staying much
longer in Chellaston, and he replied that as soon as Bates would go and
his brother was on his feet again he intended to leave for the West.
Then he begged her to lose no time in seeing Eliza, for Bates had taken
to hobbling about the roads, and he thought a sudden and accidental
meeting with the girl might be the death of him.

Now this assertion of Alec's, that Bates had taken