lonely water.
Soon the road, after its long ascent, began to dip; a few trees appeared in a hollow, then a gate and some grey walls.
Laura jumped from the cart. Beyond the gate, the road turned downward a little, and a great block of barns shut the farmhouse from view till she was actually upon it.
But there it was at last—the grey, roughly built house, that she still vaguely remembered, with the whitewashed porch, the stables and cowsheds opposite, the little garden to the side, the steep fell behind.
She stood with her hand on the pony, looking at the house in some perplexity. Not a soul apparently had heard her coming. Nothing moved in the farmhouse or outside it. Was everybody at church? But it was nearly one o'clock.
The door under the deep porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle of her whip.
No answer. She rapped again—louder and louder. At last in the intervals of knocking, she became conscious of a sound within—something deep and continuous, like the buzzing of a gigantic bee.
She put her ear to the door, listening. Then all her face dissolved in laughter. She raised her arm and brought the whip-handle down noisily on the old blistered door, so that it shook again.
"Hullo!"
There was a sudden sound of chairs overturned, or dragged along a flagged floor. Then staggering steps—and the door was opened.
"I say—what's all this—what are you making such a damned noise for?"
Inside stood a stalwart young man, still half asleep, and drawing his hand irritably across his blinking eyes.
"How do you do, Mr. Mason?"
The young man drew himself together with a start. Suddenly he perceived that the young girl standing in the shade of the porch was not his sister, but a stranger. He looked at her with astonishment—at the elegance of her dress, and the neatness of her small gloved hand.
"I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure! Did you want anything?"
The visitor laughed. "Yes, I want a good deal! I came up to see my cousins—you're my cousin—though of course you don't remember me. I thought—perhaps—you'd ask me to dinner."
The young man's yawns ceased. He stared with all his eyes, instinctively putting his hair and collar straight.
"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are, Miss," he said at last, putting out his hand in perplexity to meet hers. "Will you walk in?"
"Not before you know who I am!"—said Laura, still laughing—"I'm Laura Fountain. Now do you know?"
"What—Stephen Fountain's daughter—as married Miss Helbeck?" said the young man in wonder. His face, which had been at first vague and heavy with sleep, began to recover its natural expression.
Laura surveyed him. He had a square, full chin and an upper lip slightly underhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. He carried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built, rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that was half clumsy, half insolent.
"That's it," she said, in answer to his question—"I'm staying at Bannisdale, and I came up to see you all.—Where's Cousin Elizabeth?"
"Mother, do you mean?—Oh! she's at church."
"Why aren't you there, too?"
He opened his blue eyes, taken aback by the cool clearness of her voice.
"Well, I can't abide the parson—if you want to know. Shall I put up your pony?"
"But perhaps you've not had your sleep out?" said Laura, politely interrogative.
He reddened, and came forward with a slow and rather shambling gait.
"I don't know what else there is to do up here of a Sunday morning," he said, with a boyish sulkiness, as he began to lead the pony towards the stables opposite. "Besides, I was up half the night seeing to one of the cows."
"You don't seem to have many neighbours," said Laura, as she walked beside him.
"There's rooks and crows" (which he pronounced broadly—"craws")—"not much else, I can tell you. Shall I take the pony out?"
"Please. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for hours!"
She looked at him merrily, and he returned the scrutiny. She wore the same thin black dress in which Helbeck had admired her the day before, and above it a cloth jacket and cap, trimmed with brown fur. Mason was dazzled a moment by the milky whiteness of the cheek above the fur, by the brightness of the eyes and hair; then was seized with fresh shyness, and became extremely busy with the pony.
"Mother'll be back in about an hour," he said gruffly.
"Goodness! what'll you do with me till then?"
They both laughed, he with an embarrassment that annoyed him. He was not at all accustomed to find himself at a disadvantage with a good-looking girl.
"There's a good fire in the house, anyway," he said; "you'll want to warm yourself, I should think, after driving up here."
"Oh! I'm not cold—I say, what jolly horses!"
For Mason had thrown open the large worm-eaten door of the stables, and inside could be seen the heads and backs of two cart-horses, huge, majestic creatures, who were peering over the doors of their stalls, as though they had been listening to the conversation.
Their owner glanced at them indifferently.
"Aye, they're not bad. We bred 'em three years ago, and they've taken more'n one prize already. I dare say old Daffady, now, as looks after them, would be sorry to part with them."
"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?"
The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony, and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching his performance.
"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives," he said at last with some abruptness.
"Don't you like it then?"
"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!"
His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her.
"And your mother?"
"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the same accent of a sulky child that he had used once before.
Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he was beginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious that she was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no means indifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep him shy.
As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up the chairs he had overturned in his sudden waking.
"I say, mother would be mad if she knew
