"If he is foolish and inconsiderate enough," she soliloquized, "to rush
into this affair without a thought, then there's no helping him, and he
deserves no help. And--" she was fain to console herself at last--"and
besides, engaged is not married anyway."
But all day long she was restless and unhappy. In the evening when she
had returned from the fields and was milking the cows, and Rose was
sitting with a full pail beside a cow that had been milked, she heard
the stranger talking with Farmer Rodel in the nearby stable. They were
bargaining about a white horse. But how came the white horse in the
stable?--until then they had had none.
"Who is that singing yonder?" the stranger now asked.
"That's my sister," answered the farmer. And at the word Barefoot joined
in and sang the second voice, powerfully and defiantly, as if she wanted
to compel him to ask who _that_ was over yonder. But her singing had the
disadvantage that it prevented her from hearing whether or not he did
ask. And as Rose went across the yard with her pail, where the white
horse had just been led out for inspection, the farmer said:
"There, that's my sister. Rose, leave your work, and get something ready
for supper. We have a relative for a guest--I'll bring him in
presently."
"And it was the little one yonder, who sang the second voice?" inquired
the stranger. "Is she a sister of yours, too?"
"No--she, in a way, is an adopted child.
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