ham, the gentleman on whom and on whose wife Miss
Dunstable had seized so vehemently. This Mr. Gresham was the richest
commoner in the county, and it was rumoured that at the next election
he would be one of the members for the East Riding. Now the duke had
little or nothing to do with the East Riding, and it was well known
that young Gresham would be brought forward as a strong Conservative.
But, nevertheless, his acres were so extensive and his money so
plentiful that he was worth a duke's notice. Mr. Sowerby, also, was
almost more than civil to him, as was natural, seeing that this very
young man by a mere scratch of his pen could turn a scrap of paper
into a bank-note of almost fabulous value.

"So you have the East Barsetshire hounds at Boxall Hill; have you
not?" said the duke.

"The hounds are there," said Frank. "But I am not the master."

"Oh! I understood--"

"My father has them. But he finds Boxall Hill more centrical than
Greshamsbury. The dogs and horses have to go shorter distances."

"Boxall Hill is very centrical."

"Oh, exactly!"

"And your young gorse coverts are doing well?"

"Pretty well--gorse won't thrive everywhere, I find. I wish it
would."

"That's just what I say to Fothergill; and then where there's much
woodland you can't get the vermin to leave it."

"But we haven't a tree at Boxall Hill," said Mrs. Gresham.

"Ah, yes; you're new there, certainly; you've enough of it at
Greshamsbury in all conscience. There's a larger extent of wood there
than we have; isn't there, Fothergill?" Mr. Fothergill said that
the Greshamsbury woods were very extensive, but that, perhaps, he
thought--

"Oh, ah! I know," said the duke. "The Black Forest in its old days
was nothing to Gatherum woods, according to Fothergill. And then,
again, nothing in East Barsetshire could be equal to anything in West
Barsetshire. Isn't that it; eh, Fothergill?" Mr. Fothergill professed
that he had been brought up in that faith and intended to die in it.

"Your exotics at Boxall Hill are very fine, magnificent!" said Mr.
Sowerby.

"I'd sooner have one full-grown oak standing in its pride alone,"
said young Gresham, rather grandiloquently, "than all the exotics in
the world."

"They'll come in due time," said the duke.

"But the due time won't be in my days. And so they're going to cut
down Chaldicotes Forest, are they, Mr. Sowerby?"

"Well, I can't tell you that. They are going to disforest it. I have
been ra