The girl stepped across the sheaves and drew near the edge of the stack. Fiander stretched out his hand to assist her down.
‘That’s it,’ he remarked encouragingly; ‘I’m main glad to see you are so sensible and ready to take advice, Miss Stelling. Here, let me help ye down.’
‘No, thank you,’ she replied, ‘and my name is n’t Stelling!’
Stooping, and supporting herself with one hand against the edge of the ledge, she swung herself gracefully down, her hat dropping off as she did so; the face thus exposed to view proved even younger than Fiander had anticipated, and, were he a more impressionable man, he might well have been startled at its beauty.
Even though he had attained the respectable age of fifty-eight and had not long buried a most faithful and hard-working helpmate, the worthy farmer was conscious of a glow of admiration. Though the girl’s eyes were blue, the hair and brows were distinctly dark, and the complexion of the brunette order—a combination somewhat unusual and very striking. Her figure was, as has been said, tall and slight, yet with vigour as well as grace in every movement: she alighted on the ground as easily and as lightly as though she had been a bird.
‘Well done!’ ejaculated Fiander. ‘And what might your name be if it bain’t Stelling?’
‘My name is Goldring,’ she replied a little haughtily. ‘Rosalie Goldring. My mother was Mr. Stelling’s daughter.’
‘Well now,’ returned the farmer, smiling cheerfully, ‘Goldring! and that’s a pretty name too—partic’lar for a maid—a token I might say! Rosalie did you tell me, miss? I do mind a song as I used to hear when I were a boy about Rosalie the Prairie Flower.’ She had picked up her hat and stood gazing at him discontentedly.
‘I suppose everything is sold by this time?’ she said. ‘My dear grandfather’s mare, and the trap, and even my cocks and hens. Dear grandfather! he always used to tell me that everything in the whole place was to be mine when he died—and now they won’t so much as leave me the old rooster.’
‘Poor maid!’ ejaculated Fiander, full of commiseration, and guiltily conscious of having bought that turnip-hoer a bargain. ‘’T is unfort’nate for ye, I’m sure. Did n’t your grandfather make no provision for ’ee?’