"You'd better get in now, I think," he said; "there is a long walk ahead of us, and if my team is slow it is sure also."
As he brought the oxen to a halt, she laid her hand for an instant on his arm, and, mounting lightly upon the wheel, stepped into the cart.
"Now give me Agag," she said, and he handed her the little dog before he took up the ropes and settled himself beside her on the driver's seat. "You look like one of the disinherited princesses in the old stories mother tells," he observed.
A puzzled wonder was in her face as she turned toward him.
"Who are you? And what has Blake Hall to do with your family?" she asked.
"Only that it was named after us. We used to live there."
"Within your recollection?"
He nodded, with his eyes on the slow oxen.
"Then you have not always been a farmer?"
"Ever since I was ten years old."