will
do so at once, if you will let me know how much it is."

He thrust his hand into his pocket, but Mrs. Foulton drew back. The
corners of her mouth were drawn tightly together.

"Thank you, Mr. Stephen," she said, "I'll obey Miss Thorpe-Hatton's
wishes, of course, as in duty bound, but I'll not take any money for the
rooms. Thank you all the same."

"Don't be foolish, Mrs. Foulton," the young man said pleasantly. "It
will annoy Miss Thorpe-Hatton if she knows you have refused, and you may
just as well have the money. Let me see. Shall we say a couple of
sovereigns for the week?"

Mrs. Foulton shook her head.

"I'll not take anything, sir, thank you all the same, and if you'd say a
word to Mr. Macheson, I'd be much obliged. I'd rather any one spoke to
him than me."

Stephen Hurd pocketed the money with a shrug of the shoulders.

"Just as you like, of course, Mrs. Foulton," he said. "I'll go out and
speak to the young gentleman at once."

He strolled out and looked over the hedge.

"Mr. Macheson, I believe?" he remarked interrogatively.

Macheson nodded as he rose from his chair.

"And you are Mr. Hurd's son, are you not?" he said pleasantly.
"Wonderful morning, isn't it?"

Young Hurd stepped over the rose bushes. The two men stood side by side,
something of a height, only that the better cut of Hurd's clothes showed
his figure to greater advantage.

"I'm sorry to say that I've come on rather a disagreeable errand," the
agent's son began. "I've been talking to Mrs. Foulton about it."

"Indeed?" Macheson remarked interrogatively.

"The fact is you seem to have rubbed up against our great lady here,"
young Hurd continued. "She's very down on these services you were going
to hold, and she wants to see you out of the place."

"I am sorry to hear this," Macheson said--and once more waited.

"It isn't a pleasant task," Stephen continued, liking his errand less as
he proceeded; "but I've had to tell Mrs. Foulton that--that, in short,
Miss Thorpe-Hatton does not wish her tenants to accept you as a lodger."

"Miss Thorpe-Hatton makes war on a wide scale," Macheson remarked,
smiling faintly.

"Well, after all, you see," Hurd explained, "the whole place belongs to
her, and there is no particular reason, is there, why she should
tolerate any one in it of whom she disapproves?"

"None whatever," Macheson assented gravely.

"I promised Mrs. Foulton I would speak to you," Stephen continued,
stepping backwa