shall I do with myself all Tuesday?" he said again as
he walked away from the churchyard on the Sunday evening. "I don't
know what these people do with themselves when there's no hunting
and shooting. It seems unnatural to me that a man shouldn't have his
bread to earn,--or a woman either in some form." After that he went
back to his inn.

On the Monday he went out to Cornbury Grange late in the afternoon.
Butler Cornbury drove into Baslehurst with a pair of horses, and took
him back in his phaeton.

"Give my fellow your portmanteau. That's all right. You never were
at the Grange, were you? It's the prettiest five miles of a drive in
Devonshire; but the walk along the river is the prettiest walk in
England,--which is saying a great deal more."

"I know the walk well," said Rowan, "though I never was inside the
park."

"It isn't much of a park. Indeed there isn't a semblance of a park
about it. Grange is just the name for it, as it's an upper-class sort
of homestead for a gentleman farmer. We've lived there since long
before Adam, but we've never made much of a house of it."

"That's just the sort of place that I should like to have myself."

"If you had it you wouldn't be content. You'd want to pull down
the house and build a bigger one. It's what I shall do some day, I
suppose. But if I do it will never be so pretty again. I suppose that
fellow will petition; won't he?"

"I should say he would;--though he won't get anything by it."

"He knows his purse is longer than ours, and he'll think to frighten
us;--and, by George, he will frighten us too! My father is not a rich
man by any means."

"You should stand to your guns now."

"I mean to do so, if I can. My wife's father is made of money."

"What! Mr. Comfort?"

"Yes. He's been blessed with the most surprising number of unmarried
uncles and aunts that ever a man had. He's rather fond of me, and
likes the idea of my being in Parliament. I think I shall hint to him
that he must pay for the idea. Here we are. Will you come and take a
turn round the place before dinner?"

Rowan was then taken into the house and introduced to the old squire,
who received him with the stiff urbanity of former days.

"You are welcome to the Grange, Mr. Rowan. You'll find us very quiet
here; which is more, I believe, than can have been said of Baslehurst
these last two or three days. My daughter-in-law is somewhere with
the children. She'll be here before dinner. Butler, has t