roval as he toiled down the furrows for the
last time that day, and the song ended, leaving the cultivator with a
very good opinion of himself in his aching bones. The Girl came out of
the hut where she had been keeping the children quiet, and talking
woman-talk to the wife, and they all ate the evening meal together.

"Now yours must be a very pleasant life," said the cultivator;
"sitting as you do on a dyke all day and singing just what comes into
your head. Have you been at it long, you two--gipsies?"

"Ah!" lowed the Bull from his byre. "That's all the thanks you will
ever get from men, brother."

"No. We have only just begun it," said the Girl; "but we are going to
keep to it as long as we live. Are we not, Leo?"

"Yes," said he; and they went away hand in hand.

"You can sing beautifully, Leo," said she, as a wife will to her
husband.

"What were you doing?" said he.

"I was talking to the mother and the babies," she said. "You would not
understand the little things that make us women laugh."

"And--and I am to go on with this--this gipsy work?" said Leo.

"Yes, dear, and I will help you."

There is no written record of the life of Leo and of the Girl, so we
cannot tell how Leo took to his new employment which he detested. We
are only sure that the Girl loved him when and wherever he sang; even
when, after the song was done, she went round with the equivalent of a
tambourine and collected the pence for the daily bread. There were
times, too, when it was Leo's very hard task to console the Girl for
the indignity of horrible praise that people gave him and her--for the
silly wagging peacock feathers that they stuck in his cap, and the
buttons and pieces of cloth that they sewed on his coat. Woman-like,
she could advise and help to the end, but the meanness of the means
revolted.

"What does it matter," Leo would say, "so long as the songs make them
a little happier?" And they would go down the road and begin again on
the old, old refrain--that whatever came or did not come the children
of men must not be afraid. It was heavy teaching at first, but in
process of years Leo discovered that he could make men laugh and hold
them listening to him even when the rain fell. Yet there were people
who would sit down and cry softly, though the crowd was yelling with
delight, and there were people who maintained that Leo made them do
this; and the Girl would talk to them in the pauses of the performance
and do her