so minded, at any rate in the neighbourhood of
Kencote.

At Kencote itself, so busy was the entire station staff in helping him
and his belongings out of the train, that the signal for starting was
delayed a full minute, and then given almost as an after-thought, as if
it were a thing of small importance. Heads were poked out of carriage
windows, and an impertinent stranger, marking the delay and its cause,
asked the station-master, as he was carried past him, where was the red
carpet. The answer might have been that it was duly spread in the
thoughts of all who conducted the Squire from the train to his carriage,
and was as well brushed as if it had been laid on the platform.

The Squire had a loud and affable word for station-master and porters
alike, and another for the groom who stood at the heads of the two fine
greys harnessed to his phaeton. He walked out into the road and looked
them over, remarking that they were the handsomest pair he had seen
since he had left home. Then he took the reins and swung himself up on
to his seat, actively, for a man of his age and weight. Mrs. Clinton
climbed up more slowly to her place by his side, Cicely sat behind, and
with a jingle and clatter the equipage rolled down the road, while the
groom touched his hat and went back to the station omnibus in which Mrs.
Clinton's maid was establishing herself in the midst of a collection of
wraps and little bags. For, unless it was unavoidable, no servant of the
Clintons sat on the same seat of a carriage as a member of the family.

It was in the drowsiest time in the afternoon. The sun shone on the
hay-fields, from which the sound of sharpened scythes and the voices of
the hay-makers came most musically. Great trees bordered the half-mile
of road from the station to the village, and gave a grateful shade. The
gardens of the cottages were bright with June flowers, and the broad
village street, lined with low, irregular buildings, picturesque, but
not at all from neglected age, seemed to be dozing in the still, hot
air. A curtsy at the lodge gates, a turn of the Squire's wrist, and they
were bowling along the well kept road through the park.

A minute more, and they had clattered on to the stones under the big
porch.

"Well, here we are again, Probin," said the Squire to his head coachman,
who himself took the reins from his hands. "And here, please God, we'll
stay for the present."

CHAPTER IV

CLINTONS YOUNG AND OLD

T