I used to listen to their simple talk after they had forgotten their awe
of me, and smile and sigh to myself. It was often of lovers, and they
rallied each other about this or that swain; and sometimes it was of
their fortunes, which were being built up by tiny sums out of much
poverty, so that their milk and roses, their bright eyes and satin heads
might be gilt for their cold lovers. But I never heard anything Lady St.
Leger would not wish me to hear; indeed, the talk those summer days was
in keeping with the freshness and sweetness of the world about us.

One day that we were butter-making a party of visitors came in to see
the Creamery, as sometimes happened. I was washing the butter which lay
before me in a pan of water, with the sleeves of my gown pinned above my
elbow.

When the visitors paused to see what we were doing I did not look at
them but went on with my work. There was a good deal of whispering and
laughing among them, and I felt without looking at them that they were
not gentle-folk, at least such gentle-folk as I knew.

But presently I had the most painful sense of being stared out of
countenance, and lifting my eyes I found the eyes of one of the visitors
fixed upon me with so rude and insolent a gaze that the colour rushed
into my cheeks as though some one had struck me.

The person was a youngish man, dressed in what I took to be the height
of fashion. We know little enough about fashion, and my grandfather's
knee-breeches and frilled shirt were very smart in the Forties. The
young man had red hair and very bold blue eyes; his complexion was
ruddy, and his strong white teeth showed under his red moustache.