This was true. Phoebe's maternal instincts made her love to have a soft, helpless little lamb or calf dependent on her; but it seemed her instinct was oddly animal in quality, for when the creature on which she had lavished so much care grew to sturdiness she saw it go to the butcher's knife with unimpaired cheerfulness and turned her attentions to the next weakling. It was a standing joke against Phoebe that she called all her hens by name and nursed them from the egg up, only to inform you brightly at some meal that it was Henrietta, or Garibaldi, or whatever luckless bird it might be, that you were devouring. "If you like I'll take that puppy over to the mill now, if you'll see Wanda doesn't follow to bring it back," observed Ishmael, getting to his feet, "and then perhaps I can find out something about this bush-beating scare. If Archelaus is there--" "Be careful, Ishmael," said the Parson quietly. "Oh, I'll keep my temper, or try to. Coming with me, Joe?" Vassie sat nonchalantly picking blades of grass. She would sooner never have seen Killigrew again than have asked him to stay with her, even than have suggested, with apparent carelessness, some plan that should keep him. But she waited with throbbing heart for his answer. "I'd like to," said Killigrew briskly; "I've been abominably lazy till to-day, and that means I shall get fat. And when a person with light eyelashes and sandy whiskers gets fat all is over. I should have to go into my Guv'nor's business and become an alderman." He reared his singularly graceful self up from the grass as he spoke and helped Vassie to her feet. "Good-bye, both of you, then," said Vassie, withdrawing her hand when she was on her feet. "If you're going to the mill, I'll expect you when I see you." This would have been arch had Vassie been a little less clever; as it was it sounded so natural that even that man-of-the-world, Killigrew, was taken in. As he set off with Ishmael he felt a moment's regret that he had not stayed with Vassie--a moment inspired by her lack of pique at his not having stayed. The sun that had gilded Vassie's head had sunk swiftly by the time they reached the mill; and when the miller opened to their knock a flood of lamplight came out to mingle with the soft dusk. Phoebe's mother had died some two or three years earlier, and since then the miller had lived with only an old aunt of his own to help him look after his daughter. He peered out at them almost anxiously, Ishmael thought, and seemed rather upset at sight of him. "Who's that there?" he asked sharply; then, as Killigrew stepped forward round the porch: "I thought maybe Phoebe was weth 'ee." "Phoebe? Oh, no!" said Ishmael; "why, is she out?" "'Tes of no account," replied the miller. "I reckon she'm just gone down-along to see to the fowls or semthen. Will 'ee come in, you and your Lunnon friend?"