ss, and he wore a full brown beard, cut rather
short and carefully trimmed. He immediately won the heart of Mrs. Ambrose
on account of his extremely neat appearance. There was no foreign blood
in him, she was sure. He had large clean hands with large and polished
nails. He wore very well made clothes, and he spoke like a gentleman.
The vicar, too, was at once prepossessed in his favour, and even little
Eleanor, who was generally very shy before strangers, looked at him
admiringly and showed little of her usual bashfulness. But Mrs. Goddard
seemed ill at ease and tried to keep out of the conversation as much as
possible.

"There have been great rejoicings at the prospect of your arrival," said
the vicar when the new-comer had been introduced to both the ladies. "I
fancy that if you had let it be known that you were coming down to-day
the people would have turned out to meet you at the station."

"The truth is, I rather avoid that sort of thing," said the squire,
smiling. "I would rather enter upon my dominions as quietly as possible."

"It is much better for the people, too," remarked Mrs. Ambrose. "Their
idea of a holiday is to do no work and have too much beer."

"I daresay that would not hurt them much," answered Mr. Juxon cheerfully.
"By the bye, I know nothing about them. I have never been here before.
My man of business wanted to come down and show me over the estate, and
introduce me to the farmers and all that, but I thought it would be such
a bore that I would not have him."

"There is not much to tell, really," said Mr. Ambrose. "The society of
Billingsfield is all here," he added with a smile, "including one of your
tenants."

"Are you my tenant?" asked Mr. Juxon pleasantly, and he looked at Mrs.
Goddard.

"Yes," said she, "I have taken the cottage."

"The cottage? Excuse me, but you know I am a stranger here--what is the
cottage?"

"Such a pretty place," answered Mrs. Ambrose, "just opposite the park
gate. You must have seen it as you came down."

"Oh, is that it?" said the squire. "Yes, I saw it, and I wished I lived
there instead of in the Hall. It looks so comfortable and small. The Hall
is a perfect wilderness."

Mrs. Goddard felt a sudden fear lest her new landlord should take it into
his head to give her notice. She only took the cottage by the year and
her present lease ended in October. The arrival of a squire in possession
at the Hall was a catastrophe to which she had not looked forward