And evidently she had been too slow.

For if August had been in sight when Cynthy Ann called her, he had now disappeared on the other side of the hill.

She loitered along, hoping that he would come in sight, but he did not, and then she almost smiled to think how foolish she had been in imagining that Cynthy Ann had any interest in her love affair.

Doubtless Cynthy sided with her mother.
And so she climbed from mow to mow gathering the eggs.

No place is sweeter than a mow, no occupation can be more delightful than gathering the fresh eggs--great glorious pearls, more beautiful than any that men dive for, despised only because they are so common and so useful! But Julia, gliding about noiselessly, did not think much of the eggs, did not give much attention to the hens scratching for wheat kernels amongst the straw, nor to the barn swallows chattering over the adobe dwellings which they were building among the rafters above her.