"May I?" cried Hilda, eagerly. "I am sure these fowls have had enough. Go away now, you greedy creatures! There, you shall have all there is!" and she emptied the bowl over the astonished dignitaries of the barn-yard, laid it down on the settle in the porch, and jumped gayly into the "rigging," as the great hay-cart was called. "Haw, Bright! hoish, Star!" said the farmer, touching one and then the other of the great black oxen lightly with his goad. The huge beasts swayed from side to side, and finally succeeded in getting themselves and the cart in motion, while the farmer walked leisurely beside them, tapping and poking them occasionally, and talking to them in that mystic language which only oxen and their drivers understand. Down the sweet country lane they went, with the willows hanging over them, and the daisies and buttercups and meadow-sweet running riot all over the banks. Hilda stood up in the cart and pulled off twigs from the willows as she passed under them, and made garlands, which the farmer obediently put over the oxen's necks. She hummed little snatches of song, and chatted gayly with her kind old host; for the world was very fair, and her heart was full of summer and sunshine. "And have you always lived here, Farmer Hartley?" she asked. "All your life, I mean?" "No, not all my life," replied the farmer, "though pooty nigh it. I was ten year old when my uncle died, and father left sea-farin', and kem home to the farm to live. Before that we'd lived in different places, movin' round, like. We was at sea a good deal, sailin' with father when he went on pleasant voyages, to the West Indies, or sich. But sence then I ain't ben away much. I don't seem to find no pleasanter place than the old farm, somehow." "I don't believe there _is_ any pleasanter place in the world!" said Hilda, warmly. "I am sure I have never been so happy anywhere as I have here." Farmer Hartley looked up with a twinkle in his eye. "Ye've changed yer views some, Huldy, hain't ye, sence the fust day ye kem heer? I didn't never think, then, as I'd be givin' you rides in the hay-riggin', sech a fine young lady as you was." Hilda gave him an imploring glance, while the blood mounted to her temples. "Please, Farmer Hartley," she said in a low voice, "please try to forget that first day. It isn't my views that have changed," she added, "it is I myself. I don't--I really don't _think_ I am the same girl who came here a month ago."