He then discovered that my eyes had led my thoughts astray, and that what he had been saying about his mother had got no farther than into my ears. For on the opposite side of the stream, on the grass, like a shepherdess in an old picture, sat a young girl, about my own age, in the midst of a crowded colony of daisies and white clover, knitting so that her needles went as fast as Kirsty’s, and were nearly as invisible as the thing with the hooked teeth in it that looked so dangerous and ran itself out of sight upon Turkey’s mother’s spinning-wheel. A little way from her was a fine cow feeding, with a long iron chain dragging after her. The girl was too far off for me to see her face very distinctly; but something in her shape, her posture, and the hang of her head, I do not know what, had attracted me. “Oh! there’s Elsie Duff,” said Turkey, himself forgetting his mother in the sight--“with her granny’s cow! I didn’t know she was coming here to-day.” [Illustration] “How is it,” I asked, “that she is feeding her on old James Joss’s land?” “Oh! they’re very good to Elsie, you see. Nobody cares much about her grandmother; but Elsie’s not her grandmother, and although the cow belongs to the old woman, yet for Elsie’s sake, this one here and that one there gives her a bite for it--that’s a day’s feed generally. If you look at the cow, you’ll see she’s not like one that feeds by the roadsides. She’s as plump as needful, and has a good udderful of milk besides.” “I’ll run down and tell her she may bring the cow into this field to-morrow,” I said, rising. “I would if it were _mine_” said Turkey, in a marked tone, which I understood. “Oh! I see, Turkey,” I said. “You mean I ought to ask my father.” “Yes, to be sure, I do mean that,” answered Turkey. “Then it’s as good as done,” I returned. “I will ask him to-night.” “She’s a good girl, Elsie,” was all Turkey’s reply. How it happened I cannot now remember, but I know that, after all, I did not ask my father, and Granny Gregson’s cow had no bite either off the glebe or the farm. And Turkey’s reflections concerning the mother he had to take care of having been interrupted, the end to which they were moving remained for the present unuttered. I soon grew quite strong again, and had neither plea nor desire for exemption from school labours. My father also had begun to take me in hand as well as my brother Tom; and what with arithmetic and Latin together, not to mention geography and history, I had quite enough to do, and quite as much also as was good for me. CHAPTER XV A New Companion [Illustration]