We fitted up the little parlour with our prettiest things, and it was our morning room, and we put a screen across the big keeping-room, which made it snug for a family gathering place.  But those were the days when everyone was abusing the farmers for not living with their labourers in the house, and Fulk was determined to try it, at least the first year, either for the sake of consistency, or because he was resolved to keep our expenses as low as possible.  “Failure would be ruin,” he impressed on us, and he thought we ought to live on the profits of the farm, except what was directly spent on the boy, and to save the income of the agency. (Taking one year with another, we did so.)

So he gave up his own dear old Cid, and only used the same horses that had sufficed for our predecessor—­a most real loss and deprivation—­and he chose to take meals at the long table in the keeping-room with the farm servants.  He said we girls might dine in our little parlour apart, but there was no bearing that, and the whole household dined and supped together.  Breakfast was at such uncertain times that we left that for the back kitchen, and had our own little round table by the fire, or in the parlour, at half-past seven; and so we took care to have a good cup of coffee for Fulk when he came in about five or six; but the half-past twelve dinner and eight o’clock supper were at the long table, our three selves and Baby at the top—­Baby between me and Mrs. Rowe ("Ally’s Rowe,” as he called her), then George and Susan Sisson opposite each other, the under nurse, the two maids, the hind, and the three lads.

I believe it was a very awful penance to them at first.  We used to hear them splashing away at the pump and puffing like porpoises; and they came in with shining faces and lank hair in wet rats’ tails, the foremost of which they pulled on all occasions of sitting down, getting up, or being offered food.

But they always behaved very well, and the habit of the animal at feeding-time is so silent that I believe the restraint was compensated by the honour; and it did civilise them, thanks, perhaps, to Susan’s lectures on manners, which we sometimes overheard.

Fulk made spasmodic attempts to talk to Sisson; but the chief conversation was Jaquetta’s.  She went on merrily all dinner-time, asking about ten thousand things, and hazarding opinions that elicited amusement in spite of ourselves:  as when she asked, what sheep did with their other two legs, or suggested growing canary seed, as sure to be a profitable crop.  Indeed, I think she had a little speculation in it on her own account in the kitchen garden—­ only the sparrows were too many for her—­and what they left would not ripen.

But the child was always full of some new and rare device, rattling on anyhow, not for want of sense, but just to force a smile out of Fulk and keep us all alive, as she called it.  She knew every bird and beast on the farm, fed the chickens, collected the eggs, nursed tender chicks or orphan lambs and weaning calves, and was in and out with the dogs all day, really as happy as ten queens, with the freedom and homely usefulness of the life—­tripping daintily about in the tall pattens of farm life in those days, and making fresh enjoyment and fun of everything.