It was very hot; beyond the waste of yellow turf—relieved by the richer brown of nodding grasses at seedtime, and by the green of rushes along the sides of brackish dykes, all of which went to form the mellow plain between the village on the hill and the ocean in the distance—blue waves rippled in the sunlight and the shallow water farther out was streaked with purple shadows till a yellow dash in the distance told of scarce covered sands. She was a tall, powerful, dark girl, in every particular opposite to the fragile woman over the ironing-board. Some strain of gipsy blood in the unknown past must have bred those deep, dark eyes and kindled the quick flash that pride, anger, or pleasure would stir in their brown softness. And in her gait, too, and in her movements there was a fulness and a freedom foreign to the less well-developed persons of most of her companions. Was it any wonder that the lads liked her, that her merry spirit and her hearty ways kept them good-tempered and civil, when a gloomy face would sour the best of them—that ’Melia Shaw was a favourite with every male creature, and not quite so popular with her own sex? But for that, truth to tell, she seemed to care but little. She was hail-fellow-well-met with everybody—girl and boy alike; but if anybody presumed to “cheek” her, or to interfere with what she considered it right and proper to do, that person repented of his or her indiscretion in a very short space of time. And to-day some one had ventured to interfere with ’Melia, and was “catching it hot” in return. The imprudent person was a hard-featured woman of about forty, who was cordially hated in the field because she never looked up from her work, but picked more poles in an hour than anybody else to right or left of her. “Ye didn’t get much out o’ the lads yerself seemingly when _you_ was young, Miss Crutch,” the girl was retorting with a merry toss of her black head. “Maybe we young ’uns know a way worth two o’ that now-a-days.” And there was a roar of laughter in the field at her words, for Miss Crutch was a single woman. “Yer pore mother wouldn’t be pleased to ’ear ye speak so, anyway,” remarked the spinster severely. “You leave my mother alone,” retorted ’Melia, with one of those quick flashes from her bright eyes. “_She_ knowed her way about, anyway.” Another laugh around, but Miss Crutch said sourly, “Ay, pore soul, much of a way _she_ cut out for herself! A widder in the prime o’ life wi’ a pack of ungrateful children to moil and slave for. No wonder she be broke and old afore her time.” “Who says as they be ungrateful?” said ’Melia. “Them as sees the oldest on ’em racin’ round to please ’erself instead of ’elpin’ her,” retorted the old maid. “Well, she don’t want _your_ ’elp to mind ’em anyway,” giggled the girl, turning to empty her pocketful of hops into the bin and meeting as she did so the grave eyes of a thick-set man of quiet aspect who was lifting fresh poles for the pickers.