"So then," Vic told us, "Chrissie was sent to a very old married couple up in the hills. The old man was about ninety, and the old woman p'raps a shade more juvenile. Chrissie worked her hardest for them. But, if you'll believe me, she didn't give satisfaction there neither. The old woman asked our secretary if she couldn't be removed. And when the secretary asked what was the grouse, it turns out that the old woman was certain that the new Land Girl had taken it into her head that she would be 'his second.' I ask you!"
"And where did she go to next?" Elizabeth asked.
"Chrissie? Oh, now's she going in for motor-tractor driving. She don't stay long enough in one place to put anybody's back up with her fatal beauty. That's the story of her. I wonder what they'll do with you and Mop?"
The day of the tests arrived.
It should have seen the arrival also of the examiner from London. Of this unknown personage we were all, including the gentle giant, Mr. Price, in a state of terror. However, a telegram came to say that this magnate was unable to attend.
His place was taken by the local examiner, who turned out to be that other Mr. Rhys, the widower who had strafed the organizing secretary for sending him a too-good-looking Land Girl. Now he and that secretary, a little bright-eyed Welshwoman who had been a school-marm, had evidently made up their difference.
She, the secretary, had come over to help with the tests, for which we had in the big farmyard an audience that I had not expected. Not only these examiners and the two Prices looked on while I brought in the cows to the stalls and set to work with stool and pail, but also the visitors from the Lodge!
Heavens! how my heart sank into my clumping Land Army boots as I beheld the little procession coming through the red-painted farmyard gate. Captain Holiday, in those disgraceful but becoming grey tweeds of his, was walking with Mrs. Elvey in her smartest toque! Behind them the slim-waisted, uniformed figure of young Colonel Fielding, escorting Muriel Elvey.
"We've come to look on at the tests, if we may," Captain Holiday announced cheerfully to the Prices.
Greetings were exchanged with the ladies, and though I kept my eyes quite steadily upon the work that I had in hand, I could not help seeing Muriel's amused stare and smile, just as I couldn't help hearing her treble twitter to the men of "mustn't it be too quaint to have to wear those clothes and things—and how wonderful not to be afraid of all those great animals—I should be terrified of cows, I know I should."