a square to grow the effeminate flowers of decoration. They would blow and curtsey, Calladine’s flowers, until a wind swept over them from the angry Downs and laid them low,--but stay, what had she said?--“The wall will protect them against the wind.” Yes, and protect Calladine too: he could not stand up against the winds from the Downs. So, in her heart, she pitied Calladine and was disposed to see him protected? What had he done to deserve from her the insult of that charity? She had seen Lovel go out into a snowstorm on the heights and had not feared for his discomfort or his danger, any more than he feared for hers. Calladine she would have prevented with kind, firm words on the threshold of the door. And it so happened, at her first meeting with Lovel after her visit to Starvecrow, that she, riding, sighted him in the distance following a plough-team over a curve of hill. He was not at work in one of the folds of the lower reaches, the favourite position for the rare stains of cultivation. He and his team were in outline against the sky, following the slow and classical progression of the furrow over the curve; the hempen reins looped slackly from the horses’ heads to his hand; the man, the horses, and the plough pursued their way, disengaged from all but the essentials of their labour, with the old inevitable simplicity. Clare rode towards the brown patch and, reaching Lovel, rode at a walk beside him up and down the freshly-turned furrows. The bright share cut cleanly into the sod, turning it over. They both watched it, as it slid through the sod, with a professional and satisfied criticism. “Poor soil,” Lovel said once; otherwise they had not spoken. She liked to watch him plough, appreciating his dexterity, and the jump of the plough-shaft under his hand; she liked his voice ringing out to the horses at the turn. The slow rhythm soothed her. “Who are you ploughing for?” she asked. “Morland,” he said briefly. “Shall you be finished by six?” she asked, looking across at the westering sun; and he nodded. “I’ll wait,” she said, and getting off her pony, she slipped the reins over her arm and stood watching Lovel without impatience. At six he unhitched his team and came across to her, the horses slouching along behind him. “An ungrateful job,” he remarked, staring resentfully at the stony furrows; “they never put me on to the loam; always the chalk for me.” “I wish you had a bit of land of your own,” she said. “Ay, I’d get the better of it,” he replied, suddenly eager.