r warm colouring, her gravity, her eyes dilating suddenly like an
ecstasy.

"I say," said Paul, turning shyly aside, "your daffodils are nearly out.
Isn't it early? But don't they look cold?"

"Cold!" said Miriam, in her musical, caressing voice.

"The green on their buds--" and he faltered into silence timidly.

"Let me take the rug," said Miriam over-gently.

"I can carry it," he answered, rather injured. But he yielded it to her.

Then Mrs. Leivers appeared.

"I'm sure you're tired and cold," she said. "Let me take your coat. It
IS heavy. You mustn't walk far in it."

She helped him off with his coat. He was quite unused to such attention.
She was almost smothered under its weight.

"Why, mother," laughed the farmer as he passed through the kitchen,
swinging the great milk-churns, "you've got almost more than you can
manage there."

She beat up the sofa cushions for the youth.

The kitchen was very small and irregular. The farm had been originally
a labourer's cottage. And the furniture was old and battered. But Paul
loved it--loved the sack-bag that formed the hearthrug, and the funny
little corner under the stairs, and the small window deep in the corner,
through which, bending a little, he could see the plum trees in the back
garden and the lovely round hills beyond.

"Won't you lie down?" said Mrs. Leivers.

"Oh no; I'm not tired," he said. "Isn't it lovely coming out, don't you
think? I saw a sloe-bush in blossom and a lot of celandines. I'm glad
it's sunny."

"Can I give you anything to eat or to drink?"

"No, thank you."

"How's your mother?"

"I think she's tired now. I think she's had too much to do. Perhaps in a
little while she'll go to Skegness with me. Then she'll be able to rest.
I s'll be glad if she can."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Leivers. "It's a wonder she isn't ill herself."

Miriam was moving about preparing dinner. Paul watched everything that
happened. His face was pale and thin, but his eyes were quick and bright
with life as ever. He watched the strange, almost rhapsodic way in which
the girl moved about, carrying a great stew-jar to the oven, or looking
in the saucepan. The atmosphere was different from that of his own home,
where everything seemed so ordinary. When Mr. Leivers called loudly
outside to the horse, that was reaching over to feed on the rose-bushes
in the garden, the girl started, looked round with dark eyes, as if
something had come breaking in on her world.