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may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may grow green
again i' the sheaf--and after all, at th' end o' the year, it's like
as if you'd been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it for your
pains."

Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed along
without any check from her preliminary awe of the gentry. The confidence
she felt in her own powers of exposition was a motive force that
overcame all resistance.

"I'm afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were to speak
about the gates, Mrs. Poyser," said the captain, "though I assure you
there's no man on the estate I would sooner say a word for than your
husband. I know his farm is in better order than any other within
ten miles of us; and as for the kitchen," he added, smiling, "I don't
believe there's one in the kingdom to beat it. By the by, I've never
seen your dairy: I must see your dairy, Mrs. Poyser."

"Indeed, sir, it's not fit for you to go in, for Hetty's in the middle
o' making the butter, for the churning was thrown late, and I'm quite
ashamed." This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and believing that the captain
was really interested in her milk-pans, and would adjust his opinion of
her to the appearance of her dairy.

"Oh, I've no doubt it's in capital order. Take me in," said the captain,
himself leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.



Chapter VII

The Dairy


THE dairy was certainly worth looking at: it was a scene to sicken for
with a sort of calenture in hot and dusty streets--such coolness, such
purity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed cheese, of firm butter, of
wooden vessels perpetually bathed in pure water; such soft colouring of
red earthenware and creamy surfaces, brown wood and polished tin, grey
limestone and rich orange-red rust on the iron weights and hooks and
hinges. But one gets only a confused notion of these details when they
surround a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, standing on little
pattens and rounding her dimpled arm to lift a pound of butter out of
the scale.

Hetty blushed a deep rose-colour when Captain Donnithorne entered the
dairy and spoke to her; but it was not at all a distressed blush, for
it was inwreathed with smiles and dimples, and with sparkles from under
long, curled, dark eyelashes; and while her aunt was discoursing to him
about the limited amount of milk that was to be spared for butter and
cheese so long as the calves were not all weaned, and a large quantity
but inferior quality of milk yielded by the shorthorn, which had
been bought on experiment, together with other matters which must be
interesting to a young gentleman who would one day be a landlord, Hetty
tossed and patted her pound of butter with quite a self-possessed,
coquettish air, slyly conscious that no turn of her head was lost.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of
themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but
there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only

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