she.

"Make up your mind," continued he, smiling, "always to have your beloved
blue sky covered with gray smoke in that direction. Above those trees
will rise the factory chimney."

"You mean to build?" inquired the baroness, anxiously.

"I do," was the reply. "The undertaking will involve much that will be
disagreeable to you and me, and will require all my energies. If I
venture upon it, it is not for our own sake, but our children's. I wish
to secure this property to our family, and so to increase its return
that the owner may be able amply to provide for the rest of his
children, and yet leave the estate to the eldest son. After much painful
deliberation, I have this day taken my resolve."

CHAPTER XVII.

The baron carried on his undertaking with the greatest possible spirit.
He superintended the burning of the bricks; he himself marked the trees
destined to be cut down for the building. Ehrenthal had recommended a
builder, and the baron had found out a manager for the concern. He had
made careful inquiries as to this man's past career, and congratulated
himself upon the amount of his theoretical knowledge. Possibly this was
not wholly an advantage, for plain practical men declared that he could
never let a factory go quietly on, but was always interrupting the daily
work with new inventions and contrivances, and was therefore both
expensive and unsafe. But the baron, naturally enough, considered his
probity and intelligence to be the main point, and valued the
theoretical skill of the manager in proportion to his own ignorance.

Pleasant as his prospects were, there were yet many drawbacks. Order and
comfort had flown away with the storks, who had for years been
accustomed to make their nests on the great barn. Every body suffered
from the new undertaking. The baroness lost a corner of the park, and
had the grief of seeing a dozen noble old trees felled. The gardener
wrung his hands over the thefts committed by the strange laborers that
swarmed in all directions. The bailiff was in perfect despair at the
disorders in his jurisdiction. His horses and oxen were taken from him
to carry timber when he wanted them to plow. The wants of the household
increased; the returns from the property became less and less. Lenore
had much to do to comfort him, and brought him many pounds of tobacco
from the town, that he might smoke off his annoyance. But the heaviest
burden of course pressed upon the baron himself.