. .Not a human being was out-of-doors at
the dairy. The denizens were all enjoying the usual afternoon nap of an
hour or so, which the exceedingly early hours kept in summer-time rendered
a necessity. At the door the wood-hooped pails, sodden and bleached by
infinite scrubbings, hung like hats on a stand upon the forked and peeled
limb of an oak fixed there for that purpose; all of them ready and dry
for the evening milking. Angel entered and went through the silent passages
of the house to the back quarters, where he listened for a moment. Sustained
snores came from the cart-house, where some of the men were lying down;
the grunt and squeal of sweltering pigs arose from the still further distance.
The large-leaved rhubarb and cabbage plants slept too, their broad, limp
surfaces hanging in the sun like half-closed umbrellas.
