it is in the
puppy by a genuine fear of life, or in the kitten by a minxish
affectation of the same; and Goodtart, the cattleman, had drawn near
with a "Wunnerful, ain't they, Miss Marion?--and them not born at four
o'clock this morning," when she heard the clear voice that was sweet and
yet hard, like silver ringing on steel, calling to the dogs out in the
roadway, "Lesbia! Catullus! Come out of it!" The greyhounds had, as
usual, got in among the sheep on the glebe land opposite. She ran
forward into the darkness of the stye and put down the two piglets among
the sucking tide of life that washed the flanks of the great old sow,
but she could not stay there for ever. Goodtart, who, being in the
sunlight, could not see that she was looking out at him from the shadow,
turned an undisguised face towards the doorway, and she perceived that
the dung-brown eyes under his forelocks were almost alive and that his
long upper lip was twitching from side to side.

She walked stiffly out, hearing the voice still calling "Catullus!
Lesbia!" and went in to the house. But Peggy was baking in the kitchen
and Grandmother was reading the _Prittlebay Gazette_ in the parlour, and
she went upstairs and threw herself on the bed. She thought of nothing.
Her heart seemed by its slogging beat to be urging some argument upon
her. Presently she realised that he was no longer calling to his dogs,
and she turned on her pillow and looked out of the big window into the
farmyard. He was there. Cousin Tom Stallybrass, who had been managing
the farm ever since Grandfather's death, had come out and was talking to
him, and from his gestures was evidently telling him of the recent
collapse of the dairy wall, but he was not interested, for he did not
point his stick at it, and in him almost every mental movement was
immediately followed by some physical sign. There was something else he
wanted. When the greyhounds licked up at him he thrust them away with
the petulance of a baulked man, and whenever Tom turned his head away to
point at the dairy he cast quick glances at the farm door, at the gate
into the road, at the other gate into the fields. She could see his
face, and it was dark, and the lips drawn down at the corners. What
could it be that he wanted?

She rose from her bed and went to the window, and knelt down by it,
pressing her face and the white bib of her apron close to the glass.
Instantly he saw her, and his face was filled with worship and h