"Why shouldn't I clean my own harness, Letty, if I like?" said Godfrey, who could not help feeling pleased as well as annoyed; in this one moment Letty had come miles nearer him. "Oh, surely! if you like, Cousin Godfrey," she answered; "but do you like?" "Better than to see you doing it." "But not better than I like to do it; that I am sure of. It is hands that write poetry that are not fit for work like this." "How do you know I write poetry?" asked Godfrey, displeased, for she touched here a sensitive spot. "Oh, don't be angry with me!" she said, letting the stirrup fall on the floor, and clasping her great wash-leather gloves together; "I couldn't help seeing it was poetry, for it lay on the table when I went to do your room." "Do my room, Letty! Does my mother--?" "She doesn't want to make a fine lady of me, and I shouldn't like it if she did. I have no head, but I have pretty good hands. Of course, Cousin Godfrey, I didn't read a word of the poetry. I daredn't do that, however much I might have wished." A childlike simplicity looked out of the clear eyes and sounded in the swift words of the maiden; and, had Godfrey's heart been as hard as the stirrup she had dropped, it could not but be touched by her devotion. He was at the same time not a little puzzled how to carry himself. Letty had picked up the stirrup, and was again hard at work with it; to take it from her, and turn her out of the saddle-room, would scarcely be a proper way of thanking her, scarcely an adequate mode of revealing his estimate of the condescension of her ladyhood. For, although Letty did make beds and chose to clean harness, Godfrey was gentleman enough not to think her less of a lady--for the moment at least--because of such doings: I will not say he had got so far on in the great doctrine concerning the washing of hands as to be able to think her _more_ of a lady for thus cleaning his stirrups. But he did see that to set the fire-engine of indignant respect for womankind playing on the individual woman was not the part of the man to whose service she was humbling herself. He laid his hand on her bent head, and said: "I ought to be a knight of the old times, Letty, to have a lady serve me so." "You're just as good, Cousin Godfrey," she rejoined, rubbing away. He turned from her, and left her at her work. He had taken no real notice of the girl before--had felt next to no interest in her. Neither did he feel much now, save as owing her something beyond mere acknowledgment. But was there anything now he could do for her--anything in her he could help? He did not know. What she really was, he could not tell. She was a fresh, bright girl--that he seemed to have just discovered; and, as she sat polishing the stirrup, her hair shaken about her shoulders, she looked engaging; but whether she was one he could do anything for that was worth doing, was hardly the less a question for those discoveries.