“Cheery old thing!” grimaced Blanche.  “Do go and see she gets breakfast ready quickly, Judy.  She’ll do anything for you.”

Judy flung herself downstairs and upon the neck of Mrs. Penticost, who called her a lamb, bade her get out of the way and sit down while she got her a cup of tea and some bread and butter to keep her going till that lazy faggot overstairs should have put enough mucks on her face to be able to breakfast.

The day brightened, though still with a curious pallor that was more glare than sunlight, and both girls put on cool muslin dresses, or as cool as the long full skirts would allow of their being.  Vassie was in blue, Phoebe in pink, Judy in primrose, while Blanche was white even to her shady hat.  Girls never look as well as when there are several of them together, just as men never look so ill as in a crowd.  What brings out all the ungainliness of men’s attire emphasises the butterfly nature of girls—­their look, their voices, the little graces they half-consciously and half-unknowingly display with each other, show each off to better advantage than at any other time.  Vassie, Phoebe, Judith, and Blanche made the rough field a flower-garden that day to eye and ear, almost to nostril, for their presence was so quickening that the sweet smell of the oats and the green things cut with it seemed to emanate from the girls and be part of their presence.  Laughter and the swish of skirts mingled with the rustle of stalk and grain, the sway and the dip of skirts mingled with the bending of the sheaves.  To Ishmael his lover seemed the sweeter thus absorbed as one of others than even alone.  All that month he had been seeing her only, to such an extent that her relationship with the rest of the world down at Cloom had not held his attention.  Now he realised how vital the state of those relationships was, and seeing her one of a beautiful scheme that seemed inevitable and lasting as a Greek frieze, he took that purely physical circumstance to mean mental harmony as well.

It was hard work, though sweet, among the oats, and the physical exertion satisfied everyone, so that no fringe was left beyond it for thought.  When they first entered the field the crop lay in broad tawny bands across the greener stubble, just as it had fallen from the scythes.  The amateur harvesters had to gather the oats into great bundles and, binding them, stack the sheaves thus made together, against the day, close at hand now, when they would be carried to the threshing.

Bent-backed, the girls went along the rows, pushing the oats as they went into bundles bigger than themselves, trying to keep the feathery heads as much as possible at one end.  Round each bundle Ishmael pulled a roughly-twisted rope of the oats, tugging it fast; and when it was Blanche’s bundle be spanned, then his hands would touch hers through the glossy straws.  Every now and again, for change of labour, the girls would stagger under a heavy sheaf to where