“You haven’t got to eat sorrel pies, have you?” Rose asked, in a bewildered way.

“I don’t s’pose they’ll be any worse than some other things we eat,” Sarah answered, scraping the pie-board again.

“I don’t see how you can.”

“I guess they won’t hurt us any,” Sarah said, shortly, and Rose looked abashed.

“Well, I must be going,” said she.

As she went out, she looked hesitatingly at Charlotte.  “Hadn’t you better?” she whispered.  Charlotte shook her head, and Rose went out into the spring sunlight.  She bent her head as she went down the road before the sweet gusts of south wind; the white apple-trees seemed to sing, for she could not see the birds in them.

Rose’s face between the green sides of her bonnet had in it all the quickened bloom of youth in spring; her eyes had all the blue surprise of violets; she panted softly between red swelling lips as she walked; pulses beat in her crimson cheeks.  Her slender figure yielded to the wind as to a lover.  She passed Barney Thayer’s new house; then she came opposite the field where he was at work ploughing, driving a white horse, stooping to his work in his blue frock.

Rose stood still and looked at him; then she walked on a little way; then she paused again.  Barney never looked around at her.  There was the width of a field between them.

Finally Rose went through the open bars into the first field.  She crossed it slowly, holding up her skirts where there was a wet gleam through darker grass, and getting a little nosegay of violets with a busy air, as if that were what she had come for.  She passed through the other bars into the second field, and Barney was only a little way from her.  He did not glance at her then.  He was ploughing with the look that Cadmus might have worn preparing the ground for the dragon’s teeth.

Rose held up her skirts, and went along the furrows behind him.  “Hullo, Barney,” she said, in a trembling voice.

“Hullo,” he returned, without looking around, and he kept on, with Rose following.

“Barney,” said she, timidly.

“Well?” said Barney, half turning, with a slight show of courtesy.

“Do you know if Rebecca is at home?”

“I don’t know whether she is or not.”

Barney held stubbornly to his rocking plough, and Rose followed.

“Barney,” said she, again.

“Well?”

“Stop a minute, and look round here.”

“I can’t stop to talk.”

“Yes, you can; just a minute.  Look round here.”

Barney stopped, and turned a stern, miserable face over his shoulder.

“I’ve been up to Charlotte’s,” Rose said.

“I don’t know what that is to me.”

“Barney Thayer, ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“I can’t stop to talk.”

“Yes, you can.  Look here.  Charlotte feels awfully.”

Barney stood with his back to Rose; his very shoulders had a dogged look.