unless it was put into thorough repair: "As if one was made of
money!" said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied
and ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians,
surveying it with a smile at each other, as for the first time since
they set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and
broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery,
something that reminded them of the land they had left behind.

On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion to learn from
the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the squire) such particulars
as he could collect; and a few days afterwards Mr. Hazeldean received
a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very
respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump
Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did not
shoot, lived in great seclusion, and, having no family, did not
care about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made
weather-proof,--if the omission of more expensive reparations could
render the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited.
The offer came at a fortunate moment, when the steward had just been
representing to the squire the necessity of doing something to keep the
Casino from falling into positive ruin, and the squire was cursing the
fates which had put the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull
it down for the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore caught at
the proposal even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the
kingdom, catches, at last, at some battered old captain on half-pay,
and replied that, as for rent, if the solicitor's client was a quiet,
respectable man, he did not care for that, but that the gentleman might
have it for the first year rent-free, on condition of paying the taxes,
and putting the place a little in order. If they suited each other, they
could then come to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply,
Signor Riccabocca and his servant arrived; and, before the year's end,
the squire was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a running
lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent merely nominal,
on condition that Signor Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in
repair, barring the roof and fences, which the squire generously renewed
at his own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a
pretty place