Sam was standing in the outer room, swilling out the great cheese-vat which had held that morning a hundred and eighty gallons of skim-milk. A wonderfully obliging fellow was Sam, always ready to lend a hand here, to do an odd job there; and so good-tempered with it all. His mistress could often see his smiling mouth open and ready to agree with whatever remark he thought her likely to make long before she had spoken; and as she liked contradiction as little as any of her sex her head-man advanced the more rapidly in her favour. She was anything but gratified when Mr. Wilson appeared on the threshold of the milk-house, and after a brief greeting bent her head over her mould and went on with her work. ‘Always busy, Mrs. Fiander,’ remarked the visitor pleasantly. ‘’Pon my word, you ladies put us to shame sometimes. We men are idle creatures in comparison with you.’ Rosalie made no answer, and Sam banged about the vat with his stiff brush so energetically that he seemed bent on giving the lie to the auctioneer’s words. ‘I am really quite curious to see how you set about your cheese-making,’ pursued the latter in mellifluous tones. ‘Should I be in your way, Mrs. Fiander, if I was to step in and watch you?’ ‘I am afraid you would n’t find it very amusing,’ responded Rosalie unwillingly. ‘Of course, if you like. But it will really be most uncomfortable for you. We are all in such a mess here. Sam’—irritably—‘what a din you do make with that tub!’ Sam, who had tilted up the tub, the better apparently to scrub the bottom, now let it go suddenly, sending a great portion of its contents splashing across the floor in Mr. Wilson’s direction. ‘It be all the same,’ he remarked philosophically; ‘I were just a-goin’ to swill out this here place.’ And with that he upset a little more of the steaming water upon the floor, seized a stiff broom, and began to brush the soapy liquid towards the door. ‘You might have waited a moment,’ commented his mistress; but she spoke with a sweet smile, for she saw with the corner of her eye how hastily Mr. Wilson had skipped out of the way, anxious to protect his shining boots and immaculate leggings. ‘I really cannot invite you in now,’ she added, turning to the visitor regretfully. ‘Pray excuse the man’s awkwardness.’ But as she spoke she smiled again on Sam. She related the anecdote with much gusto to Isaac Sharpe on the following Sunday, but he did not seem to appreciate it as much as she had expected. ‘That there Wilson, he’s arter you too, I suppose. I would n’t have anything to say to him if I was you. He bain’t steady enough to make a good husband—racin’ an’ drinkin’, and sich-like. Ah, his poor wife, she did n’t praise him, but she suffered, poor soul!’