knees and
raised the limb.

"Damn the dog!" he stuttered. "Oh, poor fellow, John!"

And the two long and narrow heads for a moment were close together.

CHAPTER V

RECTOR AND SQUIRE

The efforts of social man, directed from immemorial time towards the
stability of things, have culminated in Worsted Skeynes. Beyond
commercial competition--for the estate no longer paid for living on
it--beyond the power of expansion, set with tradition and sentiment, it
was an undoubted jewel, past need of warranty. Cradled within it were
all those hereditary institutions of which the country was most proud,
and Mr. Pendyce sometimes saw before him the time when, for services to
his party, he should call himself Lord Worsted, and after his own death
continue sitting in the House of Lords in the person of his son. But
there was another feeling in the Squire's heart--the air and the woods
and the fields had passed into his blood a love for this, his home and
the home of his fathers.

And so a terrible unrest pervaded the whole household after the receipt
of Jaspar Bellew's note. Nobody was told anything, yet everybody knew
there was something; and each after his fashion, down to the very dogs,
betrayed their sympathy with the master and mistress of the house.

Day after day the girls wandered about the new golf course knocking the
balls aimlessly; it was all they could do. Even Cecil Tharp, who had
received from Bee the qualified affirmative natural under the
circumstances, was infected. The off foreleg of her grey mare was being
treated by a process he had recently discovered, and in the stables he
confided to Bee that the dear old Squire seemed "off his feed;" he did
not think it was any good worrying him at present. Bee, stroking the
mare's neck, looked at him shyly and slowly.

"It's about George," she said; "I know it's about George! Oh, Cecil! I
do wish I had been a boy!"

Young Tharp assented in spite of himself:

"Yes; it must be beastly to be a girl."

A faint flush coloured Bee's cheeks. It hurt her a little that he should
agree; but her lover was passing his hand down the mare's shin.

"Father is rather trying," she said. "I wish George would marry."

Cecil Tharp raised his bullet head; his blunt, honest face was extremely
red from stooping.

"Clean as a whistle," he said; "she's all right, Bee. I expect George
has too good a time."

Bee turned her face away and murmured:

"I should loathe