d
say some word to her as to their future standing and friendship.

"You must be very anxious to see how your farm goes on," said she.

He had not thought much of his agricultural venture at Belton for
the last three or four days, and would hardly have been vexed had he
been told that every head of cattle about the place had died of the
murrain. Some general idea of the expediency of going on with a thing
which he had commenced still actuated him; but it was the principle
involved, and not the speculation itself, which interested him. But
he could not explain all this, and he therefore was driven to some
cold agreement with her. "The farm!--you mean the stock. Yes; I shall
go and have a look at them early to-morrow. I suppose they're all
alive."

"Pudge says that they are doing uncommonly well." Pudge was a leading
man among the Belton labourers, whom Will had hired to look after his
concerns.

"That's all right. I dare say Pudge knows quite as much about it as I
do."

"But the master's eye is everything."

"Pudge's eye is quite as good as mine; and probably much better, as
he knows the country."

"You used to say that it was everything for a man to look after his
own interests."

"And I do look after them. Pudge and I will go and have a look at
every beast to-morrow, and I shall look very wise and pretend to know
more about it than he does. In stock-farming the chief thing is not
to have too many beasts. They used to say that half-stocking was
whole profit, and whole-stocking was half profit. If the animals have
plenty to eat, and the rent isn't too high, they'll take care of
their owner."

"But then there is so much illness."

"I always insure."

Clara perceived that the subject of the cattle didn't suit the
present occasion. When he had before been at Belton he had liked
nothing so much as talking about the cattle-sheds, and the land, and
the kind of animals which would suit the place; but now the novelty
of the thing was gone,--and the farmer did not wish to talk of his
farm. In her anxiety to find a topic which would not be painful, she
went from the cattle to the cow. "You can't think what a pet Bessy
has been with us. And she seems to think that she is privileged to go
everywhere, and do anything."

"I hope they have taken care that she has had winter food."

"Winter food! Why Pudge, and all the Pudges, and all the family in
the house, and all your cattle would have to want, before Bessy would