ther young and fair, with large grey eyes, and a face which was
freckled like a plover's egg. Her neat white blouse with its trim black
belt, and plain, close-cut skirt, gave her an air of refinement which
was wanting in her companion, but there was sufficient resemblance
between them to show that they were mother and daughter. The one was
gnarled and hardened and wrinkled by rough country work, the other fresh
and pliant from the benign influence of the Board School; but their
step, their slope of the shoulders, and the movement of their hips as
they walked, all marked them as of one blood.

"Mother, I can see father in the five-acre field," cried the younger,
pointing down in the direction of the farm.

The older woman screwed up her eyes, and shaded them with her hand.

"Who's that with him?" she asked.

"There's Bill."

"Oh, he's nobody. He's a-talkin' to some one."

"I don't know, mother. It's some one in a straw hat. Adam Wilson of the
Quarry wears a straw hat."

"Aye, of course, it's Adam sure enough. Well, I'm glad we're back home
time enough to see him. He'd have been disappointed if he had come over
and you'd been away. Drat this dust! It makes one not fit to be seen."

The same idea seemed to have occurred to her daughter, for she had taken
out her handkerchief, and was flicking her sleeves and the front of her
dress.

"That's right, Dolly. There's some on your flounces. But, Lor' bless
you, Dolly, it don't matter to him. It's not your dress he looks at, but
your face. Now I shouldn't be very surprised if he hadn't come over to
ask you from father."

"I think he'd best begin by asking me from myself," remarked the girl.

"Ah, but you'll have him, Dolly, when he does."

"I'm not so sure of that, mother." The older woman threw up her hands.
"There! I don't know what the gals are coming to. I don't indeed. It's
the Board Schools as does it. When I was a gal, if a decent young man
came a-courtin', we gave him a 'Yes' or a 'No.' We didn't keep him
hanging on like a half-clipped sheep. Now, here are you with two of them
at your beck, and you can't give an answer to either of them."

"Why, mother, that's it," cried the daughter, with something between
a laugh and a sob. "May be if they came one at a time I'd know what to
say."

"What have you agin Adam Wilson?"

"Nothing. But I have nothing against Elias Mason."

"Nor I, either. But I know which is the most proper-looking young man."

"Looks isn