"Dame is in the dairy--'tis built over the brook. Perhaps you will take
this with you?"

She lifted the willow-woven basket in her hand and went out through the
door across the barnyard, where the doves preened themselves among the
clean straw, and found the little stone house above the brook. All about
her she heard the busy noises of the country morning; soft voices, men's
calls, the stamping of farm horses, the clatter of the household ware,
the splash of cleansing water poured, the hissing kettle; but she saw
no one. It seemed to her that eyes were upon her and that pauses in the
cheery bustle followed her as she walked, but whenever she stopped and
tried to meet these eyes there was no one. She moved alone among the
unseen workers, and yet she knew they watched her.

In the cool stone dairy the Dame stood at work, pressing and patting at
the soft coloured butter. Beaded brown jars of cream were by her and
great, fair pans of milk, mounds and balls of primrose-tinted butter,
white cheeses wrapped in grape-leaves, clotted cream that quivered at a
touch, tall pitchers of whey, loppered milk ready for the spoon and
buttermilk in new-washed churns. Through the moist freshness of the
stone room the brook ran, chuckling and lapping; great stones roughly
mortared together made the floor on either side of it; the Dame stood
high on wooden clogs and hummed a ballad wherein the birds sang in the
morning, but at night the eggs were broken, and the wind was high and
scattered the fledglings.

[Illustration: The Dame stood high on wooden clogs and hummed a ballad.]

Even the freshness of her late rest in her heart, her eyes filled at the
Dame's song, and often afterward she thought of it when the wind was
rising.

"And did you rest well?" said the Dame to her when the song was done.

"Never so well since I was a child," she said. "I have come to thank you
for all your care, and to ask you when you can send me home, for I have
no idea where I am, and I am sure I have come a long way."

"A long way, indeed!" said the Dame, and looked at her strangely, but
when she questioned her this busy Dame only smiled, and told her that it
was good to hear of her freshening sleep but no surprise, since all made
the same report of the Farm.

"It seems the air here is so pure that a few hours of it do more for the
body than days of other parts of the countryside," she said, and when
her visitor asked again, "But where am I?" she only