She shook hands.
"You'll like a drink of milk before I show you your room ?" Taffy was grateful for the milk.

While he drank it, the voices of the children outside rose suddenly to shouts of laughter.
"That will be their father come home," said Mrs.Joll, and going to the side door called to him.

"John, put the children down! Mr.Raymond's son is here." Mr.Joll, who had been galloping round the farmyard with a small girl of three on his back, and a boy of six tugging at his coat-tails, pulled up, and wiped his good-natured face.
"Kindly welcome," said he, coming forward and shaking hands, while the two children stared at Taffy.
After a minute the boy said, "My name's Bob.

Come and play horses, too." Farmer Joll looked at Taffy with a shyness that was comic.
"Shall we ?" "Mr.Raymond will be tired enough already," his wife suggested.
"Not a bit," declared Taffy; and hoisting Bob on his back, he set off furiously prancing after the farmer.
By dinner-time he and the family were fast friends, and after dinner the farmer took him off to be introduced to Mendarva the Smith.
Mendarva's forge stood on a triangle of turf beside the high-road, where a cart-track branched off to descend to Joll's Farm in the valley.

And Mendarva was a dark giant of a man with a beard like those you see on the statues of Nineveh.