dlord. "You know, sir," said the son, "I told you last year that
Darvell would have to go."

"Where's he to go to?"

"He'll go to the workhouse if he stays here. It will be much better
for him to be bought out while there is still something left for him
to sell. Nothing can be worse than a man sticking on to land without
a shilling of capital."

"Of course it's bad. His father did very well there."

"His father did very well there till he took to drink and died of it.
You know where the road parts Darvell's farm and Brownriggs? Just
look at the difference of the crops. There's a place with wheat on
each side of you. I was looking at them before dinner."

"Brownriggs is in a different parish. Brownriggs is in Bostock."

"But the land is of the same quality. Of course Walker is a different
sort of man from Darvell. I believe there are nearly four hundred
acres in Brownriggs."

"All that," said the father.

"And Darvell has about seventy;--but the land should be made to bear
the same produce per acre."

The Squire paused a moment, and then asked a question. "What should
you say if I proposed to sell Brownriggs?" Now there were two or
three matters which made the proposition to sell Brownriggs a very
wonderful proposition to come from the Squire. In the first place he
couldn't sell an acre of the property at all,--of which fact his son
was very well aware; and then, of all the farms on the estate it was,
perhaps, the best and most prosperous. Mr. Walker, the tenant, was a
man in very good circumstances, who hunted, and was popular, and was
just the man of whose tenancy no landlord would be ashamed.

[Illustration: "What should you say if I proposed to sell
Brownriggs?"]

"Sell Brownriggs!" said the young man. "Well, yes; I should be
surprised. Could you sell it?"

"Not at present," said the Squire.

"How could it be sold at all?" They were now standing at a gate
leading out of the park into a field held by the Squire in his own
hands, and were both leaning on it. "Father," said the son, "I wish
you would not trouble yourself about the estate, but let things come
and go just as they have been arranged."

"I prefer to arrange them for myself,--if I can. It comes to this,
that it may be possible to buy the reversion of the property. I could
not buy it all;--or if I did, must sell a portion of it to raise the
money. I have been thinking it over and making calculations. If we
let Walker's farm go, and Ingr