night!"

"Cheery old thing!" grimaced Blanche. "Do go and see she gets breakfast
ready quickly, Judy. She'll do anything for you."

Judy flung herself downstairs and upon the neck of Mrs. Penticost, who
called her a lamb, bade her get out of the way and sit down while she
got her a cup of tea and some bread and butter to keep her going till
that lazy faggot overstairs should have put enough mucks on her face to
be able to breakfast.

The day brightened, though still with a curious pallor that was more
glare than sunlight, and both girls put on cool muslin dresses, or as
cool as the long full skirts would allow of their being. Vassie was in
blue, Phoebe in pink, Judy in primrose, while Blanche was white even
to her shady hat. Girls never look as well as when there are several of
them together, just as men never look so ill as in a crowd. What brings
out all the ungainliness of men's attire emphasises the butterfly nature
of girls--their look, their voices, the little graces they
half-consciously and half-unknowingly display with each other, show
each off to better advantage than at any other time. Vassie, Phoebe,
Judith, and Blanche made the rough field a flower-garden that day to eye
and ear, almost to nostril, for their presence was so quickening that
the sweet smell of the oats and the green things cut with it seemed to
emanate from the girls and be part of their presence. Laughter and the
swish of skirts mingled with the rustle of stalk and grain, the sway and
the dip of skirts mingled with the bending of the sheaves. To Ishmael
his lover seemed the sweeter thus absorbed as one of others than even
alone. All that month he had been seeing her only, to such an extent
that her relationship with the rest of the world down at Cloom had not