h her left hand. "Would you like six?"
she asked innocently, as the fourth stroke severed the last piece.

"Just go on and slice it all up," he answered with a laugh. "I'd
rather watch you than eat."

"Wait till I butter these for you and then you can eat--and watch
me--me finish working the butter. Won't that do as well? Think what an
encouragement your interest will be to me! Really, nothing in the
world paces a woman's work like a man looking on, and if he doesn't
stop her she'll drop under the line. Now, you have your bread and
butter and you can sit over there by the door and help me turn off
this ten pounds in no time."

As she had been speaking, Rose Mary had spread two of the slices with
the yellow butter from a huge bowl in front of her, clapped on the
tops of the sandwiches and then, with a smile, handed them in a blue
plate to the man who lounged across the corner of her table. She made
a very gracious and lovely picture, did Rose Mary, in her light-blue
homespun gown against the cool gray depths of the milk-house, which
was fern-lined along the cracks of the old stones and mysterious with
the trickling gurgle of the spring that flowed into the long stone
troughs, around the milk crocks and out under the stone door-sill.
From his post by the door Everett watched her as she drove her paddle
deep into the hard golden mound in the blue bowl in front of her, and,
with a quick turn of her strong, slender wrist slapped and patted
chunk after chunk of the butter into a more compressed form. The
sleeves of her dress were rolled almost to her shoulders and under the
white, moist flesh of her arms the fine muscles showed plainly. The
strong curves of her back and shoulders bent and sprung under the
graceful sweep of her arms and her round breasts rose and fell with
quickened breath from her energetic movements.

"Now, you're making me work _too_ hard," she laughed; and she panted
as she rested her hand for a second against the edge of the bowl and
looked up at Everett from under a black tendril curl that had fallen
down across her forehead.

"Miss Rose Mary Alloway, you are one large, husky--witch," calmly
remarked the hungry man as he finished disposing of the last half of
one of the thin bread and butters. "Here I sit enchanted by--by a
butter-paddle, when you and I both know that not two miles across the
meadows there runs a train that ought to put me into New York in a
little over forty-eight hours. Won't you