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 ‘Mr. Clare, you have ranged the cows!’ she said, blushing; and in making the accusation symptoms of a smile lifted her upper lip gently in the middle, in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining severely still.

‘Well, it makes no difference,’ said he. ‘You will always be here to milk them.’

‘Do you think so? I hope I shall! But I don’t know.’

She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her meaning. She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence were somehow a factor in her wish. Her misgiving was such that at dusk, when the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone to continue her regrets that she had disclosed to him her discovery of his considerateness.

It was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in such delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects seemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five. There was no distinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close to everything within