Graham played a conspicuous part. The girl was indeed a creature "of the stuff which dreams are made of;" the web of her daily life, no matter how common-place its actual experience might be, was rich with her own vivid imaginings, like the gold thread that a weaver twists through a sad-colored fabric.

"Mr. Deering, take me to the dairy. I have not yet seen it," said Millicent one afternoon, as they all sat together on the wide piazza, after the early dinner. The young man rose slowly, his great length unfolding itself as he left his chair; and for answer put down his pipe and reached up for Millicent's hat, which he had hung on a peg high above her reach. The two young people passed down the gravel walk between the broad flower beds fragrant with the wonderful roses which grow only upon the shores of the Pacific. A geranium tree twelve feet high, with its great scarlet bunches, and the vine of Maréchal roses which climbed up the piazza and tapped with its heavy blossoms at her casement, aroused Millicent's enthusiasm.

The dairy, Hal told her, was fully thirty years old. But her own palace had frowned grim and black upon the Grand Canal before the passengers on the good ship "Mayflower" had landed in Plymouth. The dairy was a plain, neat frame-building painted white, looking out upon a great farm-yard. Here the pretty cows all stood crowded together, waiting their turn to offer up their evening tribute. Two black-browed Mexicans were milking, and a tall Yankee was overseeing the straining of the milk. He stood by a large trough and received the brimming buckets from the milkers, pouring their contents through a strainer into the great receptacle. In the midst of the herd lay Jupiter, the splendid bull, lazily chewing his cud and switching away the sand flies with his thick black tail.

In a cool inner room were long shelves ranged about the brick walls, whereon stood a shining array of pans filled with milk in different stages. Millicent was one of those people who are always stimulated with a desire to accomplish whatever other people are engaged in doing. She now announced her intention of learning to milk. This suggestion was promptly vetoed by Hal, who, to divert her attention, called to one of the men to bring him the skimming utensils. He placed a large stone jar beneath the shelf, and taking one of the milk pans which was covered with a rich coating of yellow cream, proceeded to skim it. His only tool was a little wooden wand, resembling a sculptor's modelling stick. With this he separated the yellow disk of cream from the sides of the pan, tipping it slightly so that the whole mass of cream slipped off unbroken, leaving the pale-blue skimmed milk in the vessel. Millicent was delighted with the operation which Hal accomplished with such skill, and after many unsuccessful attempts finally performed the feat in a manner very creditable to a beginner.

"If you will find your way back to the house, Princess, I will help the men to finish the milking," said young Deering, when Millicent had announced her intention of returning.

She nodded her assent, and walking a few steps stopped and leaned over the gate of the farm-yard. Presently Deering came out from the dairy, having donned his rough overalls and jersey, and, placing himself on a three-legged stool, proceeded to milk a tall white cow. Millicent looked at him musingly for a few minutes, and then took her way down the path which led to the house. It was but a short distance, and lay within sight of both farm and dwelling-house, and yet she was somewhat astonished at the young man's allowing her to return alone. To see him milking, too, at work with the common laborers, had greatly perplexed her. She cast a glance over her shoulder to reassure herself that it was really Hal's hatless head which was bending forward, almost touching the side of the white cow. "And yet he is a gentleman," she said aloud; and, remembering the white hands of her papa and the gentlemen whom she had known in the Old World, was reminded of the truth, which when it is spoken seems a truism, and yet which is often lost sight of, that the proof of gentlehood lies neither in the skin of the body, nor its raiment.

Neither goodly clothes nor skin

Show the gentleman within.