So Kinraid followed the light—his light—into the icy chill of the dairy, where the bright polished tin cans were quickly dimmed with the warm, sweet-smelling milk, that Sylvia was emptying out into the brown pans. In his haste to help her, Charley took up one of the pails.
'Eh? that'n 's to be strained. Yo' have a' the cow's hair in. Mother's very particular, and cannot abide a hair.'
So she went over to her awkward dairymaid, and before she—but not before he—was aware of the sweet proximity, she was adjusting his happy awkward arms to the new office of holding a milk-strainer over the bowl, and pouring the white liquid through it.
'There!' said she, looking up for a moment, and half blushing; 'now yo'll know how to do it next time.'
'I wish next time was to come now,' said Kinraid; but she had returned to her own pail, and seemed not to hear him. He followed her to her side of the dairy. 'I've but a short memory, can yo' not show me again how t' hold t' strainer?'
'No,' said she, half laughing, but holding her strainer fast in spite of his insinuating efforts to unlock her fingers. 'But there's no need to tell me yo've getten a short memory.'
'Why? what have I done? how dun you know it?'
'Last night,' she began, and then she stopped, and turned away her head, pretending to be busy in her dairy duties of rinsing and such like.
'Well!' said he, half conjecturing her meaning, and flattered by it, if his conjecture were right. 'Last night—what?'
'Oh, yo' know!' said she, as if impatient at being both literally and metaphorically followed about, and driven into a corner.