! where are you?"
they heard her calling in the back part of the house. "Leave the
churning a minute and draw up a bucket of fresh water. They are here."

Through the open windows from the shaded back yard John heard a girlish
voice answering, "I'm coming, mother." Then there was a whir of a loose
wooden windlass and the dull thump of a bucket as it struck the surface
of the water. This was followed by the slow creaking of the windlass and
a sound of pouring water.

"We didn't come here to be waited on like a couple of nabobs," Cavanaugh
jested. "Let's go out to the well. We ought to begin right and be done
with it. The last time I boarded in the country I chopped my own
fire-wood and toted it in. I'd have washed the dishes I messed up, but
the women of the house wouldn't let me."

Without protest Whaley got up and led the way through the sitting-room,
dining-room, and kitchen to the well in the yard where Mrs. Whaley and
her daughter, a girl of about eighteen years of age, stood filling some
glasses on a tray.

"My daughter Tilly," Whaley said, indifferently. "The only one I have
left. Her two sisters married and moved off West. Her brother Tom died
awhile back."

The girl seemed shy, and scarcely lifted her eyes as she advanced and
held out her hand first to Cavanaugh and then to John. She was slight of
build, not above medium height, and had blue eyes and abundant chestnut
hair.

"Pass the water 'round," her mother instructed her, but both John and
Cavanaugh stepped forward and helped themselves. For a moment Tilly
stood hesitating, and then she turned to her churn at the kitchen door
and began to raise and lower the dasher. She had rolled up her sleeves,
and John, who was covertly watching her, saw her round white wrists and
shapely fingers. The way her unbound hair fell about her neck and lay
quivering on her moving shoulders caught and held his fancy. How
gloriously different she seemed from the only girls he had ever met, the
bedizened creatures whom he sometimes saw at his home with his mother
and Jane Holder! And, strange to say, he almost pitied Tilly for being
bound as she was to the two unemotional old people who seemed to rule
her as with a rod of iron. What a patient little sentient machine she
seemed!

"You'll want to see your rooms, I reckon," Whaley said. "Amelia'll show
you up-stairs. The Ordinary said he didn't think you'd be
over-particular. They have plenty of air and light."

John was de