belonging to Captain Carbonel might have a room added to it to
receive the scholars, by the end of harvest, by which time they might be
got together, and Mrs Verdon was to be induced to resign by a pension
of half-a-crown a week, a sum then supposed to be ample, and which,
indeed, was so for her wants, which were much less than in these days.
Captain Carbonel looked over the cottage, and worked out an estimate of
the cost with old Hewlett, whose notions of paper work were of the kind
shown in his Midsummer bill.

+===========================+=========+=====+
| |shillings|pence|
+---------------------------+---------+-----+
|1 ooden barrer a oodnt soot| 9| 6|
+---------------------------+---------+-----+
|1 ooden barrer a ood soot | 9| 6|
+===========================+=========+=====+

The result of the calculations, conjectural and otherwise, was this.

"Mary, look here. This is an expensive year, and if we do the thing
this year, we must put off making the drive through the fields--your
approach, madam."

Mary came and looked at his figures. "How will it be after harvest?"
she said.

"Harvest is an inappreciable quantity, especially to novices," he said.
"If you believe Farmer Goodenough, the finest weather will not save me
from finding myself out of pocket."

"Farmer Goodenough is an old croaker, after his kind," said Mary.

"It won't do to reckon thereupon. I must be secure of capital enough to
fall back upon. Think it over well, Mary, and answer me to-morrow; and
you had better say nothing to your sisters till your own mind is made
up. I own that I should be very glad of the road. It would save us and
old Major a good deal, to say nothing of our friends' bones."

"Do you mean that you wish it, Edmund?"

"I wish to leave it entirely to you."

Dora and Sophy had gone across the fields, a four miles' walk to
Poppleby, and were to be brought home in the evening, and Mary was left
to wander about the old road and the field-path, and meditate on the
ruts and quagmires that would beset the way in the winter, and shut them
up from visiting, perhaps even from church. Besides, there were
appearances!

There was an old gentleman, a far-away connection of Edmund's, who had
been in the navy, and now lived at Poppleby, and went about collecting
all the chatter to be heard in one house, and retailing it all in
another, and he thought himself licensed to tell Edmun