"A jolly morning, eh? I'm not going to market to-day. Am trying to dispose of three dozen eggs in the village. We never expected this weather, and the drifts are four feet deep they say on the Newton Road." "Are you going home, Phemie? Wait for me," pleaded Adrienne. Then she turned to Godfrey, who was about to leave her. "I came out on purpose to hunt you up, and see what you would say. You've done me good, though you may not think it. Good-bye." "If this frost holds, we'll have skating on the ponds," he said. "Anyhow, I'll see you again before you settle anything. Good-bye to you both. How's Dick, Miss Moray?" "First-rate," the girl replied; "but very cross at the snow stopping his ploughing to-day." The young squire with his big dog went his way. Adrienne went into the shop, and got her pound of nails and a few other trifles as well. Then she linked her arm into that of Phemie Moray's, and the two girls began to chat together in a light-hearted fashion. Adrienne was her sunny self again, she cast off all thoughts of the letter in her pocket, and listened to Phemie's humorous account of her struggles with two belligerent cows that morning, and the arrival of a calf the evening before. "I believe you are getting to love your farm life," said Adrienne presently. But Phemie shook her head. "It is too absorbing; and you know how strenuous and strong and dogged Mother is? Of course I know she is splendid; she is determined that Dick shall make his farm pay, but she works us both like carthorses. And often I ask myself, is it worth it? I've never time to read a book, hardly a minute to mend and keep myself tidy. If it isn't the poultry or the pigs or the cows, it is the meals and the house. Oh, how I hate the mud that makes such work round a farm! "But I don't mean to grumble. And when I think of Mother and me stuck away in dingy lodgings in a Bayswater road, and Dick, poor Dick tramping round with his discharge papers and medals in search of work, and coming home in the evening to eat margarine and a bit of cold mutton, and to tell Mother once again of his non-success, I can thank God for where he has placed us now. Mother and Dick are always blessing Sir Godfrey for his remembrance and interest in his old war chums. And I think that is what makes Mother so eager over it. She's so grateful for the farm, that she wants to show Sir Godfrey he won't be the loser by his generosity. And if pertinacity and continuous hard grinding work will do it, we ought to make the farm a success." "I'm sure you will," said Adrienne cheerfully. "Everyone is saying that your brother might be a born farmer from the way he works." "They don't know how much he owes to Mother. She is behind him. What he doesn't know, she gets out of practical farm books, or out of talks with the farmers round. She never forgets what she reads or hears. I wish I were more like her." "Do you never wish yourself back in London again?"