of business?

Therefore if you wanted Lorna (as I was always sure to do, God knows
how many times a day), the very surest place to find her was our own
old kitchen. Not gossiping, I mean, nor loitering, neither seeking into
things, but seeming to be quite at home, as if she had known it from a
child, and seeming (to my eyes at least) to light it up, and make life
and colour out of all the dullness; as I have seen the breaking sun do
among brown shocks of wheat.

But any one who wished to learn whether girls can change or not, as the
things around them change (while yet their hearts are steadfast, and for
ever anchored), he should just have seen my Lorna, after a fortnight
of our life, and freedom from anxiety. It is possible that my
company--although I am accounted stupid by folk who do not know my
way--may have had something to do with it; but upon this I will not say
much, lest I lose my character. And indeed, as regards company, I had
all the threshing to see to, and more than half to do myself (though any
one would have thought that even John Fry must work hard this weather),
else I could not hope at all to get our corn into such compass that a
good gun might protect it.

But to come back to Lorna again (which I always longed to do, and must
long for ever), all the change between night and day, all the shifts
of cloud and sun, all the difference between black death and brightsome
liveliness, scarcely may suggest or equal Lorna's transformation. Quick
she had always been and 'peart' (as we say on Exmoor) and gifted with a
leap of thought too swift for me to follow; and hence you may find fault
with much, when I report her sayings. But through the whole had always
run, as a black string goes through pearls, something dark and touched
with shadow, coloured as with an early end.

But, now, behold! there was none of this! There was no getting her, for
a moment, even to be serious. All her bright young wit was flashing,
like a newly-awakened flame, and all her high young spirits leaped, as
if dancing to its fire. And yet she never spoke a word which gave more
pain than pleasure.

And even in her outward look there was much of difference. Whether it
was our warmth, and freedom, and our harmless love of God, and trust
in one another; or whether it were our air, and water, and the pea-fed
bacon; anyhow my Lorna grew richer and more lovely, more perfect and
more firm of figure, and more light and buoyant, with every pas