"So you're the lame fellow, are you? Well now, you don't look it, not above your waist. You look real likely in your face, and your shoulders is broader than Lionel Percival's. He's considered well growed, too."
"Is he?" asked poor Hallam, understanding that some sort of reply was expected.
"Yes; 'Bony' feels real sot up, don't he, taking care of them donkeys? Oh, I tell you, 'Bony' is a case."
"Is he?" again feebly ejaculated Hallam. He looked helplessly toward Amy, but she was disappearing indoors, too eager to be with her parents to loiter with this unprepossessing guest.
"Yes, he's telling all over the mill, and village too, how that he belongs to your folks now. He's going to live here, ain't he?"
"He may be. It will be just as Cleena wishes, I fancy. She is the one who has taken him in charge."
"That's the work girl, ain't it?"
To the young Kayes and their parents their faithful servant had never been anything save just "Cleena." Her position in their family was as assured as their own, and that she might be thought a "work girl" by others, was a novel idea to the lad. It gave him something natural to think about; and he stood leaning on his crutches, with a smile upon his face, looking down upon the girl in the rocking-chair, chewing gum and swaying so composedly.
"Why, yes; I suppose she is. She certainly works, and all the time. But I should hardly call her a 'girl.'"
"Say, you must be tired, standing so long. Take this chair. I'll step in and get another."