"Thank you." she said, with a gravity matching her face, and very much as one is thanked for passing the salt.

"It would have drowned if you had not been there.

It is lame and couldn't swim.

I saw, from the top of the hill, that it was lame, and I was afraid something would happen to it." As she spoke, she took the lamb, which was bleating like mad, laid it on the ground and holding it still, firmly but gently, with her knee, examined it with all the confidence and coolness of a vet.
"You'll make yourself most frightfully wet," said Stafford.
She glanced up at him with only faint surprise.
"You are a Londoner," she said, "or you would know that here, in these parts, we are so often more wet than dry that it makes no matter.

Yes, I thought so; there was a thorn in its foot.