hrowing a glance here, a caution there, and
lecturing one of the younger operators who had allowed his last
finished sheep to go off among the flock without re-stamping it with
her initials, came again to Gabriel, as he put down the luncheon to
drag a frightened ewe to his shear-station, flinging it over upon its
back with a dexterous twist of the arm. He lopped off the tresses
about its head, and opened up the neck and collar, his mistress
quietly looking on.

"She blushes at the insult," murmured Bathsheba, watching the pink
flush which arose and overspread the neck and shoulders of the ewe
where they were left bare by the clicking shears--a flush which was
enviable, for its delicacy, by many queens of coteries, and would
have been creditable, for its promptness, to any woman in the world.

Poor Gabriel's soul was fed with a luxury of content by having her
over him, her eyes critically regarding his skilful shears, which
apparently were going to gather up a piece of the flesh at every
close, and yet never did so. Like Guildenstern, Oak was happy in
that he was not over happy. He had no wish to converse with her:
that his bright lady and himself formed one group, exclusively their
own, and containing no others in the world, was enough.

So the chatter was all on her side. There is a loquacity that tells
nothing, which was Bathsheba's; and there is a silence which says
much: that was Gabriel's. Full of this dim and temperate bliss, he
went on to fling the ewe over upon her other side, covering her head
with his knee, gradually running the shears line after line round her
dewlap; thence about her flank and back, and finishing over the tail.

"Well done, and done quickly!" said Bathsheba, looking at her watch
as the last snip resounded.

"How long, miss?" said Gabriel, wiping his brow.

"Three-and-twenty minutes and a half since you took the first lock
from its forehead. It is the first time that I have ever seen one
done in less than half an hour."

The clean, sleek creature arose from its fleece--how perfectly
like Aphrodite rising from the foam should have been seen to be
realized--looking startled and shy at the loss of its garment, which
lay on the floor in one soft cloud, united throughout, the portion
visible being the inner surface only, which, never before exposed,
was white as snow, and without flaw or blemish of the minutest kind.

"Cain Ball!"

"Yes, Mister Oak; here I be!"

Cainy now runs f