mething. No, Muriel, dear. I have
been a squire's daughter all my life, and there's no money in it, as
Humphrey says. The last thing I want to be at present is a squire's
wife. I believe Jim has forgotten all that silliness as much as I have.
If I thought he hadn't, I shouldn't be so glad as I am at the prospect
of seeing him back."

"I dare say he has. You're not good enough for him."

"And he isn't good enough for me. I must be going home, or father will
accuse me of over-driving Kitty. I always do over-drive her, but he
doesn't notice unless I am late. Good-bye, Muriel. It has done me good
to talk to you."

CHAPTER VII

THE RECTOR

The Rector was shown into the library where the Squire was reading the
_Times_, for which a groom rode over to Bathgate every morning at eleven
o'clock, and woe betide him if he ever came back later than half-past
twelve. It was a big room lined with books behind a brass lattice which
nobody ever opened. Though the Squire used it every day, and had used it
for five-and-thirty years, he had never altered its appointments, and
his grandfather had not lived in it. Merchant Jack had furnished it
handsomely for a library, and the Reverend John Clinton Smith, the
historian of Kencote, had bought the books for him, and read most of
them for him too. If he had returned from the tomb in which he had lain
for a hundred years to this room where he had spent some of the happiest
hours of his life, he would only have had to clear out a boxful or two
of papers from the cupboards under the bookshelves and the drawers of
the writing-tables, and remove a few photographs and personal
knick-knacks, and there would have been nothing there that was not
familiar, except the works of Surtees and a few score other books, which
he would have taken up with interest and laid down again with contempt,
in some new shelves by the fireplace. The Squire had no skill with a
room. He hated any alteration in his house, and he had debated this
question of a new bookcase to hold the few books he did read from time
to time with as much care as the Reverend John Clinton Smith, book-lover
as he was, had devoted to the housing of the whole library.

"Ah, my dear Tom," said the Squire heartily, "I'm glad you came up. I
should have come down to you, but I've been so busy all the morning that
I thought you wouldn't mind a summons. Have you brought Grace?"

"She is with Nina," said the Rector, and sat heavily down in