ve done. "We'll
come here for the shooting next year," he said; "that is, if there is
nothing to prevent us."

"I hope there'll be nothing to prevent us."

"There might be, perhaps; but we'll always come if there is not. For
the rest of it, I'll leave it to Bunce, and just run over once or
twice in the year. It would not be a nice place for you to live at
long."

"I like it of all things. I am quite interested about the farm."

"You'd get very sick of it if you were here in the winter. The truth
is that if you farm well, you must farm ugly. The picturesque nooks
and corners have all to be turned inside out, and the hedgerows must
be abolished, because we want the sunshine. Now, down at Belton, just
about the house, we won't mind farming well, but will stick to the
picturesque."

The new house was immediately commenced at Belton, and was made
to proceed with all imaginable alacrity. It was supposed at one
time,--at least Belton himself said that he so supposed,--that the
building would be ready for occupation at the end of the first
summer; but this was not found to be possible. "We must put it off
till May, after all," said Belton, as he was walking round the
unfinished building with Colonel Askerton. "It's an awful bore, but
there's no getting people really to pull out in this country."

"I think they've pulled out pretty well. Of course you couldn't have
gone into a damp house for the winter."

"Other people can get a house built within twelve months. Look what
they do in London."

"And other people with their wives and children die in consequence of
colds and sore throats and other evils of that nature. I wouldn't go
into a new house, I know, till I was quite sure it was dry."

As Will at this time was hardly ten months married, he was not as
yet justified in thinking about his own wife and children; but he
had already found it expedient to make arrangements for the autumn,
which would prevent that annual visit to Plaistow which Clara had
contemplated, and which he had regarded with his characteristic
prudence as being subject to possible impediments. He was to be
absent himself for the first week in September, but was to return
immediately after that. This he did; and before the end of that
month he was justified in talking of his wife and family. "I suppose
it wouldn't have done to have been moving now,--under all the
circumstances," he said to his friend, Mrs. Askerton, as he still
grumbled about the