facing his hayfields, smoked on placidly. Kenelm, at the third whiff,
laid aside his pipe, and glanced furtively at the three Graces. They
formed a pretty group, all clustered together near the silenced
beehives, the two younger seated on the grass strip that bordered the
flower-beds, their arms over each other's shoulders, the elder one
standing behind them, with the moonlight shining soft on her auburn
hair.

Young Saunderson walked restlessly by himself to and fro the path of
gravel.

"It is a strange thing," ruminated Kenelm, "that girls are not
unpleasant to look at if you take them collectively,--two or three
bound up together; but if you detach any one of them from the bunch,
the odds are that she is as plain as a pikestaff. I wonder whether
that bucolical grasshopper, who is so enamoured of the hop and jump
that he calls 'progress,' classes the society of the Mormons among the
evidences of civilized advancement? There is a good deal to be said
in favour of taking a whole lot of wives as one may buy a whole lot of
cheap razors. For it is not impossible that out of a dozen a good one
may be found. And then, too, a whole nosegay of variegated blooms,
with a faded leaf here and there, must be more agreeable to the eye
than the same monotonous solitary lady's smock. But I fear these
reflections are naughty; let us change them. Farmer," he said aloud,
"I suppose your handsome daughters are too fine to assist you much. I
did not see them among the haymakers."

"Oh, they were there, but by themselves, in the back part of the
field. I did not want them to mix with all the girls, many of whom
are strangers from other places. I don't know anything against them;