a man a penny, he'd give it. But if he
promised to take away a pound, he'd take it, though it cost him years
to get it. He's going to turn me out of my cottage, he says."

"Nonsense, Mrs Hearn!"

"Jolliffe came and told me"--Jolliffe, I should explain, was the
bailiff,--"that if I didn't like it as it was, I might leave it, and
that the squire could get double the rent for it. Now all I asked was
that he should do a little painting in the kitchen; and the wood is
all as black as his hat."

"I thought it was understood you were to paint inside."

"How can I do it, my dear, with a hundred and forty pounds for
everything? I must live, you know! And he that has workmen about him
every day of the year! And was that a message to send to me, who
have lived in the parish for fifty years? Here he is." And Mrs Hearn
majestically raised herself from her seat as the squire entered the
room.

With him entered Mr and Mrs Boyce, from the parsonage, with Dick
Boyce, the ungrown gentleman, and two girl Boyces, who were fourteen
and fifteen years of age. Mrs Dale, with the amount of good-nature
usual on such occasions, asked reproachfully why Jane, and Charles,
and Florence, and Bessy, did not come,--Boyce being a man who had
his quiver full of them,--and Mrs Boyce, giving the usual answer,
declared that she already felt that they had come as an avalanche.

"But where are the--the--the young men?" asked Lily, assuming a look
of mock astonishment.

"They'll be across in two or three hours' time," said the squire.
"They both dressed for dinner, and, as I thought, made themselves
very smart; but for such a grand occasion as this they thought a
second dressing necessary. How do you do, Mrs Hearn? I hope you are
quite well. No rheumatism left, eh?" This the squire said very loud
into Mrs Hearn's ear. Mrs Hearn was perhaps a little hard of hearing;
but it was very little, and she hated to be thought deaf. She did
not, moreover, like to be thought rheumatic. This the squire knew,
and therefore his mode of address was not good-natured.

"You needn't make me jump so, Mr Dale. I'm pretty well now, thank ye.
I did have a twinge in the spring,--that cottage is so badly built
for draughts! 'I wonder you can live in it,' my sister said to me the
last time she was over. I suppose I should be better off over with
her at Hamersham, only one doesn't like to move, you know, after
living fifty years in one parish."

"You mustn't think of going a