"But surely this is not the usual fashion in this country," she said curiously, "nor your quaint-figured gowns, nor much else about the place, for that matter. All this labour in flax and willow and dairy-house seems like some old picture or some ancient song—who has devised it, pray?"
"Aye, we keep the old ways," said the Dame quietly; "there must be some to do it or they will be lost, I am thinking."
"But so near the city," she said, and again the Dame looked strangely at her.
"Are we so near, then?" said she.
She knit her brows and it seemed that her mind, so clear since she woke, was clouded as to all before that; only the feeling of some great trouble, some dusty hurry, some ruinous failure haunted her. Also for the first time that day she found herself afraid.
"You have not yet told me the name of this town," she said, trying to be calm.
"It is not a town, my dear, it is called the Farm," said the Dame, putting the finished rolls of butter in a brown crock; "there is no town near us."
"But there must be!" she persisted; "you are teasing me. There are always towns, and they are never far from each other in these parts."
"I do not know them, then," said the Dame, gathering her keys and leaving the dairy, "though in truth, my dear, I am a poor judge of such matters, for beyond the Farm—and it is large—I do not go, being too busy always."
"Do you mean," she cried, following through the barnyard, "that you spend all the seasons on this Farm? It is not possible!"