May I trouble you to hold him a minute ?" Stafford held the lamb, which was tolerably quiet now; and she slowly took off her gauntlets, produced a little leather wallet from the saddle--the horse coming at her call as if he were a dog--took out a serviceable pair of tweezers, and, with professional neatness, extracted an extremely ugly thorn.

Stafford stood and watched her; the collie and the fox-terrier upright on their haunches watching her also; the collie gave an approving bark as, with a pat she liberated the lamb, which went bleating on its way to join its distracted mother, the fox-terrier leapt round her with yaps of excited admiration; and there was admiration in Stafford's eyes also.

The whole thing had been done with a calm, almost savage grace and self-possession, and she seemed to be absolutely unconscious of his presence, and only remembered it when the lamb and its mother had joined the flock.
"Thank you again," she said.

"It was very kind of you.

I am afraid you are wet." As Stafford had gone completely under the water, this was a fact he could not deny, but he said with a laugh: "Though I am a Londoner, in a sense, I don't mind a wetting--in a good cause; and I shall be dry, or as good as dry, before I get to the inn.
You must have eyes like a hawk to have seen, from the top of the hill, that that lamb was lame," he added, rather with the desire to keep her than to express his admiration for her sight.
"I have good eyes," she said, indifferently.