nts stood large and full that of 'Edmund Mannering.'

The Squire smiled.

'Now are you satisfied?'

She returned the contract to its envelope, and both to her pocket.
Then she looked at him uncertainly.

'May I ask what that meant?'

Her voice was still strained, and her eyes by no means meek.

'I am sorry,' said the Squire hurriedly. 'I don't know--it was a
whim. I wanted to have the pleasure--'

'Of seeing how a person looks under a sudden disappointment?' said
Elizabeth, with rather pinched lips.

'Not at all. It was a childish thing--I wanted to see you smile
when I gave you the thing back. There--that's the truth. It was you
disappointed me!'

Elizabeth's wrath vanished. She hid her face in her hands and
laughed. But there was agitation behind the laughter. These were not
the normal ways of a reasonable man.

When she looked up, the Squire had moved to a log close beside her.
The March sun was pouring down upon them, and there was a robin
singing, quite undisturbed by their presence, in a holly-bush near.
The Squire's wilful countenance had never seemed to Elizabeth more
full of an uncanny and even threatening energy. Involuntarily she
withdrew her seat.

'I wish to be allowed to make a very serious proposition to you,' he
said eagerly, 'one that I have been considering for weeks.'

Elizabeth--rather weakly--put up a protesting hand.

'I am afraid I must point out to you, Mr. Mannering, that Mrs.
Gaddesden will be waiting lunch.'

'If I know Alice, she will not wait lunch! And anyway there are
things more important than lunch. May I take it for granted, Miss
Bremerton, that you have not been altogether dissatisfied with your
life here during this six months?'

Elizabeth looked him gravely in the face. It was clear there was to
be no escape.

'How could I have been, Mr. Mannering? You have taught me a great,
great deal--and given me wonderful opportunities.'

The Squire nodded, with a look of satisfaction.

'I meant to. Of course Chicksands would say that it was only my
own laziness--that I have given you the work I ought to have done
myself. My reply would be that it was not my work. If a man
happens to be born to a job he is not in the least fitted for,
that's the affair of Providence. Providence bungled it when he,
she, or it--take which pronoun you like--[Greek: tyche], as you
and I know, is feminine--made me a landowner. My proper job was to
dig up and decipher what is left of the Greek