Dora followed this advice, for she had not considered a milk-stained lap among the contingent circumstances of the afternoon.  Holding the bottle over the listless animal, she managed to get some drops on its tongue.

“Now,” said Miriam, “we will put that in its mouth, and shut its jaws, and perhaps it may begin to suck.  It will be perfectly dreadful if it dies.”

The two girls sat close together, their eyes fixed upon the apparently lifeless head of the bovine infant.

“See!” cried Miriam, presently, “its throat moves; I believe it is sucking the milk.”

Dora leaned over and gazed.  It was indeed true; the calf was beginning to take an interest in food.  The interest increased; the girls could see the milk slowly diminishing in the bottle.  Before long the creature gave its head a little wobble.  Miriam was delighted.

“That is the way it always does, when its appetite is good.  We must let it drink every drop, if it will.”

There they sat on the hard, hay-strewn floor, one entirely, and the other almost entirely covered with purple silk, their eyes fixed upon the bottle and the feeding calf.  After a time the latter declined to take any more milk, and raised its head from Miriam’s lap.

“There,” she cried; “see, it can hold up its own head.  I expect it was only faint from want of food.  After this I will feed it oftener.  It was the bread-making that made me forget it this time.”

“Let us wait a minute,” said Dora, who was now taking an earnest and womanly interest in the welfare of this weakling.  “Perhaps after a while it may want some more.”  And so they continued to sit.  Every motion of the calf’s head, and every effort it made to bend its legs, or change its position, sent sparkles of delight into Miriam’s eyes, and brightened Dora’s beautiful face with sympathetic smiles.

Dora had taken up the bottle, and was about to give the calf an opportunity to continue its repast, when suddenly she stopped and sat motionless.  Outside the barn, approaching footsteps could be plainly heard.  They were heavy, apparently those of a man.  Dora dropped the bottle, letting it roll unheeded upon the floor; then pushing Miriam’s skirt from her lap, she sprang to her feet, and stepped backwards and away from the little group so quickly, that she nearly stumbled over some inequalities in the floor.  Miriam looked up in astonishment.

“You needn’t be frightened,” she said.  “How red you are!  I suppose it is only Ralph.”

“I was afraid it was,” said Dora, in a low voice, as she shook out her skirts.  “I wouldn’t have had him see me that way for anything.”

Now Miriam was angry.  There was nothing to be ashamed of, that she could see, and it was certainly very rude in Miss Bannister to drop her bottle, and nearly push her over in her haste to get away from her and her poor calf.

The person who had been approaching the barn now entered, but it was not Ralph Haverley.  It was a shorter and a stouter young man, with side whiskers.