"Hello, Carlia", greeted Dorian as he stopped at the yard and stood leaning against the fence.
Carlia was just finishing milking a cow. As she straightened, with a three-legged stool in one hand and a foaming milk pail in the other, she looked toward Dorian. "O, is that you? You scared me."
"Why?"
"A stranger coming so suddenly."
The young man laughed. "Nearly through?" he asked.
"Just one more—Brindle, the kickey one."
"Aren't you afraid of her?"
Carlia laughed scornfully. The girl had beautiful white teeth. Her red cheeks were redder than ever. Her dark hair coiled closely about her shapely head. And she had grown tall, too, the young man noticed, though she was still plump and round-limbed.
"My buckets are full, and I'll have to take them to the house before I can finish," she said. "You stay here until I come back—if you want to."
"I don't want to—here, let me carry them." He took the pails from her hand, and they went to the house together.