ELEVENNO breath of wind stirred all night, and although the sun glowered inimically on first topping the eastern downs, it climbed out of a tattered wisp of cloud into a sky of purest azure. Jarge came in from the dairy barn with two wooden pails brimful of milk, looking defiant in defense of Gaffer’s fame as a weather prophet. Honoring it still, I had Jarge’s mother fill a basket with eggs, bread, butter, cuts of bacon, a head of cabbage, and a jar of honey, for Jarge to carry to the cottage in case Rene should become storm-bound there. But I was fully resolved not to get in the same fix with him. Although I had lain awake more than an hour after midnight, my head full of wild thoughts and my body of wilder achings, I had wakened serene and sane.
“Mrs. Dawson, have you any mead?” I asked
