"Not better than you did," said Elizabeth.
"But isn't he comical?"
"No; neither comical nor old. I thought you seemed to like him very well."
"O, one must do something. La! you aren't going to get up yet?"
But Elizabeth was already at the south window and had it open. Early it was; the sun not more than half an hour high, and taking his work coolly, like one who meant to do a great deal before the day was ended. A faint dewy sparkle on the grass and the sweetbriars; the song sparrows giving good-morrow to each other and tuning their throats for the day; and a few wood thrushes now and then telling of their shyer and rarer neighbourhood. The river was asleep, it seemed, it lay so still.
"Lizzie! — you ought to be in bed yet these two hours — I shall tell Mr. Haye, if you don't take care of yourself."
"Have the goodness to go to sleep, and let me and Mr. Haye take care of each other," said the girl dryly.
Her cousin looked at her a minute, and then turning her eyes from the light, obeyed her first request and went fast asleep.
A little while after the door opened and Elizabeth stood in the kitchen. It was already in beautiful order. She could sec the big dresser now, but the tin and crockery and almost the wooden shelves shone, they were so clean. And they shone in the light of an opposite fire; but though the second of June, the air so early in the morning was very fresh; Elizabeth found it pleasant to take her stand on the hearth, near the warm blaze. And while she stood there, first came in Karen and put on the big iron tea-kettle; and then came Mrs. Landholm with a table-cloth and began to set the table. Elizabeth looked alternately at her and at the tea-kettle; both almost equally strange; she rather took a fancy to both. Certainly to the former. Her gown was spare, shewing that means were so, and her cap was the plainest of muslin caps, without lace or bedecking; yet in the quiet ordering of gown and cap and the neat hair, a quiet and ordered mind was almost confessed; and not many glances at the calm mouth and grave brow and thoughtful eye, would make the opinion good. It was a very comfortable home picture, Elizabeth thought, in a different line of life from that she was accustomed to, — the farmer's wife and the tea-kettle, the dresser and the breakfast table, and the wooden kitchen floor and the stone hearth. She did not know what a contrast she made in it; her dainty little figure, very nicely dressed, standing on the flag-stones before the fire. Mrs. Landholm felt it, and doubted.
"How do you like the place, Miss Haye?" she ventured.