Mrs. Joyce was a tall, large woman with sandy hair, from which the sun now brought out pretty lights. She had the temper which usually accompanies such hair, easily roused and as easily appeased. The mere sight of these yellow, fluffy chickens, the consciousness of the sunshine, and the fragrance, and suggestiveness, had filled her with a kind of hazy content. The wall-flowers yonder under the kitchen windows were already ablow, she observed. The pigs, too, were coming on nicely; the calf, which was bleating not unmusically in one of the outhouses, had had the good sense to be a heifer. Altogether Mrs. Joyce felt that the world was not a bad place and that life was worth living. She was in this frame of mind when, chancing to raise her eyes, she saw the figure of Shepherd Robbins shambling slowly down the steep “pinch” of road that led to the farm gate. Perhaps it was the sudden contrast between that gaunt form, that haggard, melancholy face, and the surrounding brightness and prosperity that moved her, perhaps because, being a good-hearted woman in the main, she shared her husband’s regret at the course events were taking; in any case at sight of him her anger melted away, and a flood of genuine pity swept over her heart. She went to meet Robbins at the gate and laid her hand kindly on his arm. “Why, shepherd,” she said, and her pleasant voice assumed an inflection that was almost tender, “’tis never true what my husband tells me? You bain’t a-thinkin’ of leaving we? We couldn’t get on without ’ee.” Sometimes an unexpected kind word from a person whom we have distrusted, and perhaps disliked, carries more weight than a similar one from a friend. Poor Robbins had been dogged and surly enough with the master whom he loved, but when the missus, with whom he had hitherto lived, as it were, on the defensive, spoke so gently and looked so kind, he gazed back at her astonished, softened, confounded. And when she said again: “Why, shepherd, you bain’t goin’ to desert we?” he suddenly burst into tears. “No ma’am,” he said brokenly. “I—I—what be I to do?” The tears were running down his face. “I d’ ’low I’d be loth to leave master.” “Well, you mustn’t think on it,” returned Mrs. Joyce decidedly. “We couldn’t do without you. See—’tis all a bit o’ temper, bain’t it? You never truly meant to give notice?” “I did, missus; I did,” sobbed the old man. “It bain’t temper neither, it—it be the notion, I think.” “Yes, that’s all it be, sure,” said Mrs. Joyce, not in the least knowing what he meant, but speaking in soothing tones and patting his arm kindly; “’tis but a notion, Abel. Eight shillin’ bain’t so bad, you know—come. You’ll never want so long as you ’arn eight shillin’ a week—eight shillin’ a week ’ll keep you, wunt it?”