ling down the hillside,
bringing with it an odour of new-mown hay, of honeysuckle and wild
roses from the flower-wreathed hedges. The girl lifted her head and
her expression softened.

"It is a wonderful country, this," she admitted. "You are to be
congratulated upon having discovered it, Mr. Pratt. We ought to
consider ourselves very fortunate, my mother and I, in having such a
pleasant home."

"It isn't half good enough for you," he declared bluntly.

She treated him to one of her sudden vagaries. All the discontent
seemed to fade in a moment from her face. Her eyes laughed into his,
her mouth softened into a most attractive curve.

"Some day," she said, as she turned away, "I may find my palace, but I
don't think that you will be the landlord, Mr. Pratt.--Bother!"

Her ill-temper suddenly returned. A tall, elderly lady had issued from
the house and was leaning over the gate. She was of a severe type of
countenance, and Jacob remembered with a shiver her demeanour on his
visit to the Manor House in the days of the Bultiwell prosperity. She
welcomed him now, however, with a most gracious smile, and beckoned
him to advance.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Pratt," she said, as they shook hands.
"I have not had an opportunity of congratulating you upon your access
to fortune."

"Very good of you, I'm sure," Jacob murmured.

"We," Mrs. Bultiwell continued, "are progressing, as you perceive, in
the opposite direction. I suppose it is an idea of mine, but I feel
all the time as though I were living in a sort of glorified
almshouse."

"It must seem very small to you after the Manor," Jacob replied
politely, "but the feeling you have spoken of is entirely misplaced.
The Estate is conducted as a business enterprise, and will, without
doubt, show a profit."

"You are, I believe," Mrs. Bultiwell said, "connected with the
Estate?"

Jacob admitted the fact. Sybil, who had recommenced her watering, drew
a little closer.

"There are a few things," Mrs. Bultiwell observed, "to which I think
the attention of the manager should be drawn. In the first place, the
garden. It all requires digging up."

"Surely that is a matter for the tenants," Sybil intervened.

"Nothing of the sort," Jacob pronounced. "It is a very careless
omission on the part of the owners. I will give orders concerning it
to-morrow."

Mrs. Bultiwell inclined her head approvingly. Having once tasted
blood, she was unwilling to let her victim go.