me out and beg her Ladyship
to come in for a glass of cowslip wine; and she and Mary would go in to
a rather dark parlour--to be sure, the windows were smothered in
jessamine and roses and honeysuckle--and sit down in chairs covered in
flowery chintz, and sip the fragrant wine and eat the home-made cake,
while the topics of interest between landlord and tenant were discussed.
Then the farmer would come in himself, hat in hand, and his eyes would
light up at the sight of the visitor, and there would be more pleasant
homely talk of cattle and crops, and the harvest and the plans for the
autumn sowing, and the state of fairs and markets.

There was Nuthatch Village, which seemed to have stepped out of
Morland's pictures. It was all so pretty and peaceful, with its red
gabled cottages sending up their blue spirals of smoke into the
overhanging boughs of great trees. Mary cried out in delight at the
quaint dormers, with their diamond panes, at the wooden fronts, at the
gardens chockfull of the gayest and most old-fashioned flowers.

"As for prettiness," said Lady Agatha, "it isn't a patch on Highercombe,
a mile away, and, what is more, I've done more than anyone else to spoil
its prettiness. I've filled in the pond and driven the swan and the
water-hen to other haunts. I've given them a new water-supply and done
away with the most picturesque pump, which was sunk in 1770 by Dame
Elizabeth Chenevix. I've put new grates and new floors into the houses,
and I've seen to it that all windows open and shut. The pity of it is
that I can't compel them to make use of their privilege of opening.
Also, I've introduced cowls on the chimneys. My friend, Lionel Armytage,
the painter, lifted his hands in horror at my doings. I'd have liked to
get at the chimneys, but I'd have had to pull down every cottage in the
place to rectify them. Oh, I've spoilt Nuthatch, there's not a doubt of
it. You must see Highercombe."

"The children seem healthy," Mary said thoughtfully, "and the old people
walk straighter than one sees them often."

"Ah, yes, that is it." Lady Agatha's face flushed and lit up. "I've made
it healthy for them. Highercombe is a painted lie--a pest-house, a
charnel-house, full of unwholesome miasmas from its pretty green, its
pond covered with water-lilies. Death lurks in that pond. There is bad
drainage and bad water; the damp oozes through the old brick floors of
the houses. The whole place is as deadly in its way as those We