Page 224 - sons-and-lovers

that was backed by the oak-wood, still bare. Then a youth
in a heavy overcoat climbed down. He put up his hands for
the whip and the rug that the good-looking, ruddy farmer
handed down to him.
Miriam appeared in the doorway. She was nearly six-
teen, very beautiful, with her warm colouring, her gravity,
her eyes dilating suddenly like an ecstasy.
‘I say,’ said Paul, turning shyly aside, ‘your daffodils are
nearly out. Isn’t it early? But don’t they look cold?’
‘Cold!’ said Miriam, in her musical, caressing voice.
‘The green on their buds—-’ and he faltered into silence
timidly.
‘Let me take the rug,’ said Miriam over-gently.
‘I can carry it,’ he answered, rather injured. But he yield-
ed it to her.
Then Mrs. Leivers appeared.
‘I’m sure you’re tired and cold,’ she said. ‘Let me take
your coat. It IS heavy. You mustn’t walk far in it.’
She helped him off with his coat. He was quite unused to
such attention. She was almost smothered under its weight.
‘Why, mother,’ laughed the farmer as he passed through
the kitchen, swinging the great milk-churns, ‘you’ve got al-
most more than you can manage there.’
She beat up the sofa cushions for the youth.
The kitchen was very small and irregular. The farm had
been originally a labourer’s cottage. And the furniture was
old and battered. But Paul loved it—loved the sack-bag that
formed the hearthrug, and the funny little corner under the
stairs, and the small window deep in the corner, through