"Happened!" cried the old man with a voice quavering into a shrill
treble. "How would he like it himself? Seventy years, boy and man,
have I sat here, like my father before me. I've seen yon elm grow from
a stick to what she is now. I've buried all my kith and kin bar them
two lassies."

"Of course, I know you're very old. But why are you crying?" demanded
Rosalind.

"Crying! Wouldn't you cry, Missy, if you was to be turned neck and crop
into the road at threescore years and ten?"

"Nonsense. What do you mean?"

"Come Tuesday," sobbed the old man, "me and the lassies will be
trespassers in this here very place."

"What!" exclaimed Miss Rosalind, "do you mean you're to be turned out?
Who dares to do such a thing?"

"You go and ask Mr Pottinger, if you doubt it," blubbered the old man.
"He ought to know."

Without another word, Miss Rosalind flung herself from the cottage and
marched straight for the lawyer's, pale, with bosom heaving and a light
in her eyes, that Armstrong, had he been there to see it, would have
shivered at.

"Mr Pottinger," said she, breaking unceremoniously into the lawyer's
private room, "what is this I hear! How dare you frighten old Hodder by
talking about his leaving his farm?"

The lawyer stared at this beautiful apparition, not knowing whether to
be amused or angry. It was the first time any one in Maxfield had
addressed him in this strain, and the sensation was so novel that he
felt fairly taken aback.

"Really, dear young lady, I am delighted with any excuse that gives me
the pleasure of a visit from--"

"Mr Pottinger," said the young lady in a tone which made him open his
eyes still wider, "will you tell me, yes or no, if what Hodder tells me
is true?"

"That depends on what Hodder says," replied the lawyer, trying to look
cheerful.

"He says he has had notice to leave his farm next week. Is that true?"

"That entirely depends on himself, if I _must_ suffer cross-examination
from so charming a counsel."

"You mean--"

"I mean, my pretty young lady, that if he chooses to pay the new rent he
is entitled to stay."

"You have raised his rent?--a poor old man of seventy-five?"

"I have no power to do that. But I understand he has had the land for
next to nothing. It is worth more now."

"Mr Pottinger," said Miss Rosalind, "let me tell you that if you have
any hand in this wicked business you are a bad man, whatever you profess
to be. I shouldn't sleep to