Half unconsciously he put his hand on her arm pleadingly, and with the firm, masterful touch of the man.

“Will you wait one more moment?” he said, in his deep, musical voice.  She paused and looked at him enquiringly.  “You said just now that you had no brother, no one to help you.  Will you let me help you? will you let me stand in the place of a friend, of a brother?”

She looked at him with frank surprise; and most men would have been embarrassed and confused by the steady, astonished regard of the violet eyes; but Stafford was too eager to get her consent to care for the amusement that was mixed with the expression of surprise.

“Why—­how could you help me?” she said at last; “even if—­”

—­“You’d let me,” he finished for her.  “Well, I’m not particularly clever, but I’ve got sense enough to count sheep and drive cows; and I can break in colts, train dogs, and, if I’m obliged, I daresay I could drive a plough.”

Her eyes wandered thoughtfully, abstractedly down the dale; but she was listening and thinking.

“Of course I should have a lot to learn, but I’m rather quick at picking up things, and—­”

“Are you joking, Mr. Orme?” she broke in.

“Joking?  I was never more serious in my life,” he said, eagerly, and yet with an attempt to conceal his earnestness.  “I am asking it as a favour, I am indeed!  I shall be here for weeks, months, perhaps, and I should be bored to death—­”

“With your father’s house full of visitors?” she put in, softly, and with a smile breaking through her gravity.

“Oh, they’ll amuse themselves,” he said.  “At any rate, I sha’n’t be with them all day; and I’d ever so much rather help you than dance attendance on them.”

She pushed the short silky curls from her temples, and shook her head.

“Of course it’s ridiculous,” she said, with a girlish laugh; “and it’s impossible, too.”

“Oh, is it?” he retorted.  “I’ve never yet found anything I wanted to do impossible.”

“You always have your own way?” she asked.

“By hook or by crook,” he replied.

“But why do you want to—­help me?” she asked.  “Do you think you would find it amusing?  You wouldn’t.”  The laughter shone in her eyes again.  “You would soon grow tired of it.  It is not like hunting or fishing or golfing; it’s work that tries the temper—­I never knew what a fiendish temper I had got about me until the first time I had to drive a cow and calf.”

“My temper couldn’t be worse,” he remarked, calmly.  “Howard says that sometimes I could give points to the man possessed with seven devils.”

“Who is Mr. Howard?” she asked.

“My own particular chum,” he said.  “He came down with me and is up at the house now.  But never mind Howard; are you going to let me help you as if I were an old friend or a—­brother?  Or are you going to be unkind enough to refuse?”