the miller, smiling and all gray-white with dusty meal, "and she's not so young as she were by a couple of centuries or so, but she's quite safe though she do rock and rattle a bit. But Lor' bless you, I likes to hear her talk; it's company like, for it's lonely work up here by oneself all day at times." It was not only that the ancient mill moved and shook so, but the floor was uneven as well, nor was there overmuch elbow-room to allow a margin for unsteadiness, and it would have been awkward to have been caught by any of the whirring wheels; moreover the noise was confusing and the light seemed dim for the moment after the bright sunshine without. But we soon got used to the new condition of things and our novel and unstable surroundings.
"I wonder she has never been blown right over in a storm during all those years," I said, "for she is only supported on a single post, though certainly it is a big one." In truth the mill shook so much in the comparatively steady breeze that it seemed to us a heavy storm would easily have laid her low. Mills, like ships, are always "she's," I have observed, though how a man-of-war can be a "she" has always puzzled me. "Well, she may be only supported on one post, but that is of solid heart of oak, as whole and strong to-day as when first put up; not worm-eaten a bit. There's an old saying you may have heard, 'there's nothing like leather'; it ought to be, I thinks, by rights, 'there's nothing like oak.' She do rock though when it blows hard, but I'm used to it; it's her nature, and she'll last
