Miriam, peeping through the kitchen window, saw the horse walk through the big white gate into the farmyard that was backed by the oak-wood, still bare. Then a youth in a heavy overcoat climbed down. He put up his hands for the whip and the rug that the good-looking, ruddy farmer handed down to him.
Miriam appeared in the doorway. She was nearly sixteen, very beautiful, with her warm colouring, her gravity, her eyes dilating suddenly like an ecstasy.
“I say,” said Paul, turning shyly aside, “your daffodils are nearly out. Isn’t it early? But don’t they look cold?”
“Cold!” said Miriam, in her musical, caressing voice.
“The green on their buds——” and he faltered into silence timidly.
“Let me take the rug,” said Miriam over-gently.
“I can carry it,” he answered, rather injured. But he yielded it to her.
Then Mrs. Leivers appeared.
“I’m sure you’re tired and cold,” she said. “Let me take your coat. It is heavy. You mustn’t walk far in it.”
She helped him off with his coat. He was quite unused to such attention. She was almost smothered under its weight.
“Why, mother,” laughed the farmer as he passed through the kitchen, swinging the great milk-churns, “you’ve got almost more than you can manage there.”
She beat up the sofa cushions for the youth.
The kitchen was very small and irregular. The farm had been originally a labourer’s cottage. And the furniture was old and battered. But Paul loved it—loved the sack-bag that formed the hearthrug, and the funny little corner under the stairs, and the small window deep in the corner, through which, bending a little, he could see the plum-trees in the back-garden and the lovely round hills beyond.
“Won’t you lie down?” said Mrs. Leivers.
“Oh no; I’m not tired,” he said. “Isn’t it lovely coming out, don’t you think? I saw a sloe-bush in blossom and a lot of celandines. I’m glad it’s sunny.”
“Can I give you anything to eat or to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“How’s your mother?”
“I think she’s tired now. I think she’s had too much to
