pa?'

'Certainly not, without the proper notice, and so I told James, and
that the notice she had sent down to him was so much waste-paper.'

'So at least she has created a village Hampden,' said Bessie,
'though, depend upon it, she little supposes herself to be the petty
tyrant.'

'I must go and explain to her, I suppose, to-morrow morning,' said
the Admiral.

However, he had scarcely reached his own gate before the ulstered
form was seen rushing up to him.

'Oh! Admiral Merrifield, good-morning; I was coming to ask you--'

'And I was coming to you.'

'Oh! Admiral, is it really so--as that impudent man told me--that
those horrid people can't be got out of those awful tumbledown,
unhealthy places for all that immense time?'

'Surely he was not impudent to you? He was only asserting his
right. The cottages were taken by the year, and you have no choice
but to give six months' notice. I hope he was not disrespectful.'

'Well, no--I can't say that he was, though I don't care for those
cap-in-hand ways of your people here. But at any rate, he says he
won't go--no, not any of them, though I offered to pay them up to
the end of the time, and now I must put off my beautiful plans. I
was drawing them all yesterday morning--two model cottages on each
side, and the drinking fountain in the middle. I brought them up to
show you. Could you get the people to move out? I would promise
them to return after the rebuilding.'

'Very nice drawings. Yes--yes--very kind intentions.'

'Then can't you persuade them?'

'But, my dear young lady, have you thought what is to become of them
in the meantime?'

'Why, live somewhere else! People in Smokeland were always shifting
about.'

'Yes--those poor little town tenements are generally let on short
terms and are numerous enough. But here--where are the vacant
cottages for your four families? Hodd with his five children,
Tibbins with eight or nine, Mrs. West and her widow daughter and
three children, and the Porters with a bedridden father?'

'They are dreadfully overcrowded. Is there really no place?'

'Probably not nearer than those trumpery new tenements at Bonchamp.
That would be eight miles to be tramped to the men's work, and the
Wests would lose the washing and charing that maintains them.'

'Then do you think it can never be done? See how nice my plans
are!'

'Oh yes! very pretty drawings, but you don't allow much outlet.'

'I thought you had allot