"But you never used to do anything at all, did you?" she asked.

He hesitated. Here was a chance to give her an affecting history of
his former exalted fortune and position, and perhaps even to stir her
evidently romantic nature with some suggestion of his sacrifices to one
of her own sex. Women liked that sort of thing. It aroused at once
their emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized the
opportunity, but--for some reason, he knew not why--awkwardly and
clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertion
that was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. Suddenly the
girl stopped him.

"Yes, I know all THAT; pa told me. Told me you'd been given away by some
woman."

His face again flushed--this time with anger. The utter failure of his
story to excite her interest, and her perfect possession of herself and
the situation,--so unlike her conduct a few moments before,--made him
savagely silent, and he clambered on sullenly at her side. Presently she
stopped, balancing herself with a dexterity he could not imitate on one
of the larger upheaved clods, and said:--

"I was thinking that, as you can't do much with those hands of yours,
digging and shoveling, and not much with your feet either, over ploughed
ground, you might do some inside work, that would pay you better, too.
You might help in the dining room, setting table and washing up, helping
ma and me--though I don't do much except overseeing. I could show you
what to do at first, and you'd learn quick enough. If you say 'yes,'
I'll speak to pa to-night. He'll do whatever I say."