The clods over which they were clambering were so uneven that sometimes the young girl was mounting one at the same moment that Reddy was descending from another. Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, was delivered over his head. “Oh, because pa says most of the men here don't give their real names--they don't care to be known afterward. Ashamed of their work, I reckon.” His face flushed a moment, even in the darkness. He WAS ashamed of his work, and perhaps a little of the pitiful sport he was beginning. But oddly enough, the aggressive criticism only whetted his purpose. The girl was evidently quite able to take care of herself; why should he be over-chivalrous? “It isn't very pleasant to be doing the work of a horse, an ox, or a machine, if you can do other things,” he said half seriously. “But you never used to do anything at all, did you?” she asked. He hesitated. Here was a chance to give her an affecting history of his former exalted fortune and position, and perhaps even to stir her evidently romantic nature with some suggestion of his sacrifices to one of her own sex. Women liked that sort of thing. It aroused at once their emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized the opportunity, but--for some reason, he knew not why--awkwardly and clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertion that was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. Suddenly the girl stopped him. “Yes, I know all THAT; pa told me. Told me you'd been given away by some woman.” His face again flushed--this time with anger. The utter failure of his story to excite her interest, and her perfect possession of herself and the situation,--so unlike her conduct a few moments before,--made him savagely silent, and he clambered on sullenly at her side. Presently she stopped, balancing herself with a dexterity he could not imitate on one of the larger upheaved clods, and said:-- “I was thinking that, as you can't do much with those hands of yours, digging and shoveling, and not much with your feet either, over ploughed ground, you might do some inside work, that would pay you better, too. You might help in the dining room, setting table and washing up, helping ma and me--though I don't do much except overseeing. I could show you what to do at first, and you'd learn quick enough. If you say 'yes,' I'll speak to pa to-night. He'll do whatever I say.”