."

"H'm!" said my lord. "We're going to be neighbors? We _are_ neighbors.
We must dwell together in unity. Miss Blythe--we must dwell together in
unity. I have my hands pretty full this afternoon, and I must go. I'll
just trim these laburnums, and alter--"

"I beg your lordship's pardon," said Miss Blythe, with decision, "your
lordship will do nothing of the sort."

"Eh? Oh, nonsense, nonsense! Must clear the footway. Must have the
footway clear--really must. Besides, it improves the aspect of the
garden. Always does. Decidedly improves it. Joseph Beaker, hold the
ladder."

Talking thus, the old gentleman had arisen from his chair and had
re-entered the roadway, but the little old lady skimmed past him and
faced him at the foot of the ladder.

"If your lordship wants to cut trees," she said, "your lordship may cut
your lordship's own."

"Up thee goest, gaffer," said Joseph, handing over the little old lady's
head the billhook and the saw.

Miss Blythe turned upon him with terrible majesty.

"Joseph Beaker?" she said, regarding him inquiringly. "Ah! The passage
of six-and-twenty years has not improved your intellectual condition.
Take up that ladder, Joseph Beaker. If you should ever dare again to
place it against a tree upon my freehold property I shall call the
policeman. I will set man-traps," pursued the little old lady, shaking
her curls vigorously at Joseph. "I will have spring-guns placed in the
trees."

"Her's wuss than t'other un," mumbled the routed Joseph, as he shambled
in his lop-sided fashion down the road. "I should ha' thought you could
ha' done what you liked wi' a little un like that. I niver counted on
being forced to flee afore a little un."

The earl said nothing, and Miss Blythe, satisfied that the retreat was
real, had already gone back to her gardening.

CHAPTER III.

In the mean time the young man in the tasselled cap and the
patent-leathers had strolled leisurely in the opposite direction to that
the earl had taken, and in a little while--still followed by the valet,
who bore his painting tools--had climbed into a field knee-deep in
grass which was ready for the scythe. At the bottom of this meadow ran a
little purling stream, with a slant willow growing over it. In obedience
to the young gentleman's instructions, the valet set down his burden
here, and having received orders to return in an hour's time, departed.
The young gentleman sketched the willow and the brook in no