‘I came to ask if Mr Prosser wants any outside help for harvest.’ She looked at him steadily. Their eyes met. ‘I don’t know. What’s your name?’ ‘Fellows. Abner Fellows.’ ‘Where do you live? You don’t belong to these parts?’ ‘Wolfpits.’ ‘Wolfpits?’ She examined him more closely, repeating the word with an accent of surprise. She put a brown-gloved finger to her lip. ‘I think dad will want some one: they’re beginning the barley on Monday,’ she said slowly. ‘Tell you what . . . you’d better look up here to-morrow morning. I’ll tell dad you’re coming. So long!’ She touched up the horse and the dog-cart shot forward. Abner went on his way encouraged. ‘Where did you try to-day?’ Mary asked him. She was doing her utmost to appear interested in his quest. Indeed she could not well do less. ‘Up to The Dyke . . . Prosser’s place.’ Mary blushed. ‘Did you see any one there?’ ‘The place was all shut up,’ he said, ‘but I met a young lady as I took to be Mr Prosser’s daughter in the drive just after I turned back.’ ‘What age was she?’ ‘Summat about yourn.’ ‘Dark?’ ‘Ah, darkish. There was a young ’un along with her.’ ‘How was she dressed?’ ‘Now you’m asking things out of reason,’ Abner laughed. ‘Them’s the sort of things a man don’t notice.’ ‘It must have been Marion,’ she said, and later in the evening she explained to him that Mr Prosser’s elder daughter was an old schoolfellow of hers, and rather more than a schoolfellow, for they had once been great friends. Mary’s father, the unfortunate Condover, had been something of a crank on the subject of education and had sent her to a school in Ludlow, where she had mixed with all sorts of people who were, in fact, her social superiors. ‘But that’s all ages ago,’ she said. ‘I expect that she’s forgotten me by now. Mr Prosser lost his wife five or six years ago, and Marion’s had charge of the house ever since then. A great big place, The Dyke! She’s a queer girl, I’ll give you my word for that.’ Next day Abner went up early to the farm. In the yard he found the younger of the two girls. She was dressed in a holland overall and a big straw hat and was watching a hatch of ducklings that an anxious hen had mothered, learning to swim in an iron bath. When she saw Abner she ran into the house calling: ‘Marion! Marion!’ The elder came to the door. Abner scarcely recognised her, for she had changed her tweeds and her sporting hat for an overall like that of her sister, and her dark hair was bound in thick plaits about her head. She greeted him frankly, smiling and showing between her parted lips a set of beautiful teeth. ‘I’ve told dad about you,’ she said. ‘He’s just gone over to have a look at the bull and ’ll be back in a minute. Have a glass of cider?’ Abner thanked her. She returned brightly with a mug of cider and a plate of scones hot from the girdle.