“It’s rich milk,” Alinor said easily. “There’s no need for charming. If you’re happy with this, I’ll make squares for market.”

“Don’t make them too big,” Mrs. Miller said. “One pound each only. No point in giving it away.”

“Exactly,” Alinor said patiently.

“If it’s slightly underweight that’s better than over. They don’t weigh at the market.”

“Certainly. And I’ll wrap them.”

“And you’ll come Saturday morning to pack the cart for me?”

“Yes,” Alinor said. “And Alys will come, too. D’you want us all the day?”

“You can mind the farm and the mill while we’re at market. Low tide at dinnertime, but I won’t ask you to open the sluice and turn the wheel.”

Alinor smiled at the weak joke, as the door from the kitchen opened. “Am I to check the hens’ eggs?” Alys asked.

“Haven’t you done that already?” Mrs. Miller asked crossly. “Go and do it now, lazy girl.”

Saturday morning Alinor was up at dawn to do the final strain and pour of the wedding ale. Alys helped her mother and they both sniffed the rich yeasty aroma.

“It’s going to be good,” Alinor said with satisfaction.

Ned put his head around the brewhouse door. “I hope it’s not too strong?”

“It’s wedding ale,” Alinor replied. “It’s as it should be.”

“I want no drunkenness, and no bawdy games,” Ned specified.

“What sort of woman do you take me for?” Alinor demanded.

“You’re one that loves the old ways, and you know it. But this is to be a godly, quiet, and temperate marriage.”

“No wedding ale?” asked Alinor. “Shall I pour this in the rife?”

“Well, no wines,” he specified. “And no strong waters.”

“In that case,” Alinor said regretfully, “I shall have to beg Mrs. Stoney, for once, to stay sober.”

Ned could not stifle a chuckle. Mrs. Stoney had already impressed him with her grim puritanism. “She’s a godly woman,” he reproved his sister. “She shouldn’t be mocked.”

“I know!” Alinor replied, and gave the wedding ale a final stir, before putting on her cape to go to the mill.

When Alinor and Alys walked into the mill yard the cart was at the door and clean straw in the bottom. A sprinkling of snow made it cold enough for the squares of butter to be loaded in their baskets without fear of them going soft. Alinor, Alys, and Jane loaded big round cheeses and eggs in baskets as well, until Mrs. Miller came out of the house, wrapped to her eyes in furs as if she was going to Russia, and took her place on the cart seat. Peter and Jane climbed up beside their mother.

Mr. Miller hurried to take up the reins. He knew that his wife would not tolerate delay. “Good day!” he said to Alinor, with a smile for Alys. “You’re in charge, you know! We’ll be home by dinnertime!”

Working at the mill without the constant critical commentary of Mrs. Miller and the hangdog eyes of her husband was like working in their own yard. Richard and the miller’s lad cleaned out the barn where the plowing oxen were stabled, and Alys and Alinor fed and watered them. The women turned the horses out into the frozen pasture for a few hours while the young men mucked out the stables. Alinor pumped the buckets of water and Alys carried them. They raked out the kennels and the henhouses, the pen for the geese and the cows’ stalls. The two women milked the cows and carried the pails to the dairy. They collected hens’ eggs from the henhouse and looked in the little warm nooks around the barns where the hens sometimes laid away; but Mrs. Miller had gone around at dawn and taken every one she could find to market. Every time anyone went past a fallen branch they carried it back to the yard and piled it up for the boy to break it into kindling or split it for logs.