"Can anything equal the spring-time?" she burst forth at length.
Her uncle looked at her and smiled. "Perhaps not; but it is one thing," said he, sighing, "for taste to enjoy, and another thing for calculation to improve."
"But one can do both, can't one?" said Fleda, brightly.
"I don't know," said he, sighing again. "Hardly."
Fleda knew he was mistaken, and thought the sighs out of place. But they reached her; and she had hardly condemned them before they set her off upon a long train of excuses for him, and she had wrought herself into quite a fit of tenderness by the time they reached her cousin.
They found him on a gentle side-hill, with two other men and teams, both of whom were stepping away in different parts of the field. Mr. Plumfield was just about setting off to work his way to the other side of the lot, when they came up with him.
Fleda was not ashamed of her aunt Miriam's son, even before such critical eyes as those of her uncle. Farmer-like as were his dress and air, they showed him, nevertheless, a well- built, fine-looking man, with the independent bearing of one who has never recognised any but mental or moral superiority. His face might have been called handsome; there was at least manliness in every line of it; and his excellent dark eye showed an equal mingling of kindness and acute common sense. Let Mr. Plumfield wear what clothes he would, one felt obliged to follow Burns' notable example, and pay respect to the man that was in them.
"A fine day, Sir," he remarked to Mr. Rossitur, after they had shaken hands.
"Yes, and I will not interrupt you but a minute. Mr. Plumfield, I am in want of hands hands for this very business you are about, ploughing and Fleda says you know everybody; so I have come to ask if you can direct me."
" Heads or hands, do you want?" said Seth, clearing his boot- sole from some superfluous soil upon the share of his plough.