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 slowed, the whizzing ceased, and she stepped from the bedding to the ground.

Her lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, was promptly at her side.

'What—after all—my insulting slap, too!' said she in an underbreath. She was so utterly exhausted that she had not strength to speak louder.

'I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything you say or do,' he answered, in the seductive voice of the Trantridge time. 'How the little limbs tremble! You are as weak as a bled calf, you know you are; and yet you need have done nothing since I arrived. How could you be so obstinate? However, I have told the farmer that he has no right to employ women at steam-threshing. It is not proper work for them; and on all the better class of farms it has been given up, as he knows very well. I will walk with you as far as your home.'

'O yes,' she answered with a jaded gait. 'Walk with me if you will! I do bear in mind that you came to marry me before you knew of my state. Perhaps—perhaps you be a little better and kinder than I have been thinking you