s of
her ladyship's house seem to have wrinkled into a constant scowl
of annoyance. Shaw's long, low cottage seems to smile back with
tantalizing security, serene in its more lofty altitude, in its more
gorgeous raiment of nature. The brooks laugh with the glitter of
trout, the trees chuckle with the flight of birds, the hillsides
frolic in their abundance of game, but the acres are growling like
dogs of war. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is not printed on the
boards that line the borders of the two estates. In bold black letters
the sign-boards laconically say: "No trespassing on these grounds.
Keep off!"

"Yes, I fancy you'd better put him off the place if he comes down here
again to fish, Tompkins," said his lordship, in conclusion. Then he
touched whip to his horse and bobbed off through the shady lane in a
most painfully upright fashion, his thin legs sticking straight out,
his breath coming in agonized little jerks with each succeeding return
of his person to the saddle.

"By Jove, Evelyn, it's most annoying about that confounded Shaw chap,"
he remarked to his wife as he mounted the broad steps leading to the
gallery half an hour later, walking with the primness which suggests
pain. Lady Bazelhurst looked up from her book, her fine aristocratic
young face clouding with ready belligerence.

"What has he done, Cecil dear?"

"Been fishing on our property again, that's all. Tompkins says he
laughed at him when he told him to get off. I say, do you know, I
think I'll have to adopt rough methods with that chap. Hang it all,
what right has he to catch our fish?"

"Oh, how I hate that man!" exclaimed her ladyship petulantly.

"But I've given Tompkins final instructions."

"And what are they?"

"To throw him in the river next time."

"Oh, if he only _could_!" rapturously.

"_Could_? My dear, Tompkins is an American. He can handle these chaps
in their own way. At any rate, I told Tompkins if his nerve failed
him at the last minute to come and notify me. _I'll_ attend to this
confounded popinjay!"

"Good for you, Cecil!" called out another young woman from, the broad
hammock in which she had been dawdling with half-alert ears through
the foregoing conversation. "Spoken like a true Briton. What is this
popinjay like?"

"Hullo, sister. Hang it all, what's he like? He's like an ass, that's
all. I've never seen him, but if I'm ever called upon to--but you
don't care to listen to details. You remember the big lo