ven a farthing,
until it should become convenient. Pride had forbidden me to speak of
this; but I would have got over that pride much rather than meet this
Sir Montague Hockin thus. Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether;
and having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps,
foolish importance to that.

However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one through
instinct; and I knew already that in England young women are not quite
such masters of their own behavior as in the far West they are allowed
to be. And so I did my best that, even in my eyes, he should not see
how vexed I was at meeting him. And soon it appeared that this behavior,
however painful to me, was no less wise than good, because both with my
host and hostess this new visitor was already at the summit of all good
graces. He had conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes
and upshots, and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the
distance; and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had
opened a hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of
an extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with
every feather sticking inside out. When I saw them, I tried for my life
not to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded, until the
cock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb and very sad
inversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife (who stood beneath
him, even more turned inside out), capered with his twiggy legs, and
gave a long, sad crow. Mrs. Hockin looked at him with intense delight.

"Erema, is it possible that you laugh? I thought that you never laughed,
Erema. At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might choose a
fitter opportunity, I think. You have spoiled his demonstration
altogether--see, he does not understand such unkindness--and it is the
very first he has uttered since he came. Oh, poor Fluffsky!"

"I am very, very sorry. But how was I to help it? I would not, on any
account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive. Fluffsky,
do please to begin again."

"These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you," said Sir Montague,
coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers for one more
crow. "Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have a fowl that even
Lady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have it in a week, or a
fortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can manage it. They are not
to be had excep