“Let me milk,” offered Dorian.

“No; you’re strange, and she’d kick you over the fence.”

“O, I guess not,” he remarked; but he let the girl finish her milking.  He again carried the milk back; he also took the “slop” to the pigs and threw the hay to the horses, while the girl gave the new milk to the butting calf; then back to the house where they strained the milk.  Then the young man was sent into the front room while the girl changed from work to Sunday attire.

The front room was very hot and uncomfortable.  The young man looked about on the familiar scene.  There were the same straight-backed chairs, the same homemade carpet, more faded and threadbare than ever, the same ugly enlarged photographs within their massive frames which the enterprising agent had sold to Mrs. Duke.  There was the same lack of books or music or anything pretty or refined; and as Dorian stood and looked about, there came to him more forcibly than ever the barrenness of the room and of the house in general.  True, his own home was very humble, and yet there was an air of comfort and refinement about it.  The Duke home had always impressed him as being cold and cheerless and ugly.  There were no protecting porches, no lawn, no flowers, and the barn yard had crept close up to the house.  It was a place to work.  The eating and the sleeping were provided, so that work could be done, farm and kitchen work with their dirt and litter.  The father and the mother and the daughter were slaves to work.  Only in work did the parents companion with the daughter.  The visitors to the house were mostly those who came to talk about cattle and crops and irrigation.

As a child, Carlia was naturally cheerful and loving; but her sordid environment seemed to be crushing her.  At times she struggled to get out from under; but there seemed no way, so she gradually gave in to the inevitable.  She became resentful and sarcastic.  Her black eyes frequently flashed in scorn and anger.  As she grew in physical strength and beauty, these unfortunate traits of character became more pronounced.  The budding womanhood which should have been carefully nurtured by the right kind of home and neighborhood was often left to develop in wild and undirected ways.  Dorian Trent as he stood in that front room awaiting her had only a dim conception of all this.

Carlia came in while he was yet standing.  She had on a white dress and had placed a red rose in her hair.

“O, say, Carlia!” exclaimed Dorian at sight of her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Here you go dolling up, and look at me.”

“You’re all right.  Open the door, it’s terribly stuffy in here.”

Dorian opened the tightly stuck door.  Then he turned and stood looking at the girl before him.  It seemed to him that he had never seen her so grown-up and so beautiful.

“Say, Carlia, when did you grow up?” he asked.

“While you have been away growing up too.”