“It is tithe milk. As we do not make cheese, Mr. Peterson will have us set by every tenth milking for your papa’s tithe. There is a dispute between him and my husband as to which ought to carry the milk. Mr. Peterson says that my husband is bound to carry it, either to the vicarage or to the church porch; and I would have taken it myself to the church porch, to save quarrelling, but my husband stopped me. He is sure that he has the law on his side in making the tithe-taker send his own pails for the milk; and so here it stands spoiling. I make the less stir about it that Mr. Peterson now collects the tithes instead of the vicar himself.” Alice was immediately bent on going to tell Mr. Peterson that he had better send for the milk; or, perhaps, authorize her to carry it. This was exactly such an enterprise as suited Alice. She seized every opportunity of following a swarm of bees, or of driving pigs, or of helping to push sheep into the water before shearing. She had never recovered the prohibition to go the bounds of the parish; and had a secret plan to do it by herself some day, to show that she could. Mrs. Beverley would let her through her house, she was sure; and Joseph Lambert was too good-tempered to quarrel with her for climbing his hedge. Meantime, it would be good entertainment, in a small way, to haul a full milk-pail half through the parish, without spilling a drop; and she could sit down in the church porch to grow cool when the task was done. Mrs. Byrne would not allow this; that was the worst of it. Alice grew cross. Nobody would let her do as she liked this day. She would not now look at the bees; nor gather herself a nosegay; nor try whether she could not find green peas enough ripe to make a little dish for her papa’s supper; nor dust Mrs. Byrne’s prized collection of shells and birds’ eggs. Nothing would she do but go down again to the rectory garden, and peep through the palings to watch the mowing, and the process of tedding the grass, the delicious process which she must not aid. Mrs. Byrne foresaw that the smell of the hay would be a provocative to melancholy, and sighed when she found all her blandishments in vain, and that the wilful girl would have her way. She was still looking grave over the kneading of the dumpling for her husband’s dinner, when Alice came back, seeming much disposed to fly but for the care she was taking of something in her frock, which was turned up round her, and made the depôt of something very precious. The hay-making seemed all forgotten, with every other grief, and Alice was trembling with pleasure. “The milk-pail! the milk-pail, my dear,” cried Mrs. Byrne. “Bless me! how nearly you were in again, you giddy thing! What can you have got in your lap? What a lot of eggs! Partridge’s eggs! What a number!”