yet she knew it all as well as he.

Meanwhile, Cecil was quite changed. He almost hated Sam, and seldom
spoke to him, and at the same time hated himself for it. He grew pale,
too, and never could be persuaded to join any sport whatever; while
Sam, being content to receive only a few words in the day from My Lady,
worked harder than ever, both in the yards and riding. All day he and
Jim would be working like horses, with Halbert for their constant
companion, and, half an hour before dinner, would run whooping down to
the river for their bathe, and then come in clean, happy, hungry--so
full of life and youth, that in these sad days of deficient grinders,
indigestion, and liver, I can hardly realize that once I myself was as
full of blood and as active and hearty as any of them.

There was much to do the week that Alice and Sam had their little tiff.
The Captain was getting in the "scrubbers" cattle, which had been left,
under the not very careful rule of the Donovans, to run wild in the
mountains. These beasts had now to be got in, and put through such
processes as cattle are born to undergo. The Captain and the Major were
both fully stiff for working in the yards, but their places were well
supplied by Sam and Jim. The two fathers, with the assistance of the
stockman, and sometimes of the sons, used to get them into the yards,
and then the two young men would go to work in a style I have never
seen surpassed by any two of the same age. Halbert would sometimes go
into the yard and assist, or rather hinder; but he had to give up just
when he was beginning to be of some use, as the exertion was too
violent for an old wound he had.

Meanwhile Cecil despised all these things, and, though a capital hand
among cattle, was now grown completely effeminate, hanging about the
house all day, making, in fact, "rather a fool of himself about that
girl," as Halbert thought, and thought, besides, "What a confounded
fool she will make of herself if she takes that little dandy!--not that
he isn't a very gentlemanlike little fellow, but that Sam is worth five
hundred of him."

One day, it so happened that every one was out but Cecil and Alice; and
Alice, who had been listening to the noises at the stockyard a long
while, suddenly proposed to go there.

"I have never been," she said; "I should so like to go! I know I am not
allowed, but you need not betray me, and I am sure the others won't. I
should so like to see what they are about