always pleasant if you don't overdo it. Only, mind you, good mowing
requires some little skill. I'm a pretty good mower."

This talk brought us up to the house that was a-building, not a large
one, which stood at the end of a beautiful orchard surrounded by an
old stone wall. "O yes, I see," said Dick; "I remember, a beautiful
place for a house: but a starveling of a nineteenth century house
stood there: I am glad they are rebuilding: it's all stone, too,
though it need not have been in this part of the country: my word,
though, they are making a neat job of it: but I wouldn't have made
it all ashlar."

Walter and Clara were already talking to a tall man clad in his
mason's blouse, who looked about forty, but was I daresay older, who
had his mallet and chisel in hand; there were at work in the shed and
on the scaffold about half a dozen men and two women, blouse-clad
like the carles, while a very pretty woman who was not in the work
but was dressed in an elegant suit of blue linen came sauntering up
to us with her knitting in her hand. She welcomed us and said,
smiling: "So you are come up from the water to see the Obstinate
Refusers: where are you going haymaking, neighbours?"

"O, right up above Oxford," said Dick; "it is rather a late country.
But what share have you got with the Refusers, pretty neighbour?"

Said she, with a laugh: "O, I am the lucky one who doesn't want to
work; though sometimes I get it, for I serve as model to Mistress
Philippa there when she wants one: she is our head carver; come and
see her."