work coolly, like one who meant to do a great deal
before the day was ended. A faint dewy sparkle on the grass
and the sweetbriars; the song sparrows giving good-morrow to
each other and tuning their throats for the day; and a few
wood thrushes now and then telling of their shyer and rarer
neighbourhood. The river was asleep, it seemed, it lay so
still.

"Lizzie! -- you ought to be in bed yet these two hours -- I
shall tell Mr. Haye, if you don't take care of yourself."

"Have the goodness to go to sleep, and let me and Mr. Haye
take care of each other," said the girl dryly.

Her cousin looked at her a minute, and then turning her eyes
from the light, obeyed her first request and went fast asleep.

A little while after the door opened and Elizabeth stood in
the kitchen. It was already in beautiful order. She could sec
the big dresser now, but the tin and crockery and almost the
wooden shelves shone, they were so clean. And they shone in
the light of an opposite fire; but though the second of June,
the air so early in the morning was very fresh; Elizabeth
found it pleasant to take her stand on the hearth, near the
warm blaze. And while she stood there, first came in Karen and
put on the big iron tea-kettle; and then came Mrs. Landholm
with a table-cloth and began to set the table. Elizabeth
looked alternately at her and at the tea-kettle; both almost
equally strange; she rather took a fancy to both. Certainly to
the former. Her gown was spare, shewing that means were so,
and her cap was the plainest of muslin caps, without lace or
bedecking; yet in the quiet ordering of gown and cap and the
neat hair, a quiet and ordered mind was almost confessed; and
not many glances at the calm mouth and grave brow and
thoughtful eye, would make the opinion good. It was a very
comfortable home picture, Elizabeth thought, in a different
line of life from that she was accustomed to, -- the farmer's
wife and the tea-kettle, the dresser and the breakfast table,
and the wooden kitchen floor and the stone hearth. She did not
know what a contrast _she_ made in it; her dainty little figure,
very nicely dressed, standing on the flag-stones before the
fire. Mrs. Landholm felt it, and doubted.

"How do you like the place, Miss Haye?" she ventured.

To her surprise the answer was an energetic, "Very much."

"Then you are not afraid of living in a farm-house?"

"If I don't like living in it, I'll live out of it," said
Elizabeth, retur