the aristocracy. Always so pleasant and
frank spoken, and not a bit of side about him. It 'u'd be, 'Hallo,
Wicks'--which was me, miss--'how are you? And how's the brindle pup?'
And he'd take his hat off to the missus just as if she was one of his
grand lady friends."

Nell moved toward the open door, but Mr. Wicks followed her as if loath
to let her go.

"Rare cut up we was, miss, when we heard that him and the old earl had
quarreled and the old gentleman had gone and got married, which was just
like the Anglefords--always so hotheaded and flyaway. Yes, it was a
cruel blow to Lord Selbie, or so it seemed; but it all turned out right,
seeing that there wasn't a heir born to cut him out. Not that any of us
had a word to say about the lady the old earl married. As nice and as
pretty--begging her pardon--a little lady, though a foreigner, as ever
you met. Yes, it's all right, and our young gentleman as we was all so
fond of is coming into his own, as the saying is. Yes, miss, it shall be
sent up at once, certainly. And good day to you, miss!"

Wherever she went, Nell found the people rejoicing at the coming advent
of the new lord, who was anything but new to most of them, who, like
Wicks, knew and were attached to him. Before she had finished her
shopping, Nell found herself quite interested in the new master of
Anglemere, and wondered whether she should see him and what he would be
like. By the time she had got back to the lodge, her headache had gone,
and she was singing to herself as she arranged some flowers she had
picked on her way through the woods.

In the afternoon, she went for a long walk; but, long as it was, it did
not by any means take her out of the domains of the Earl of Angleford,
which stretched away for miles round the great house. She saw farms
dotted here and there on the hillsides, and looking prosperous with
their cattle and sheep feeding in the fields, and the corn waving like a
green sea on the slopes of the hills. There were large plantations, in
which she disturbed the game; and parklike spaces, in which colts
frisked beside the brood mares, for which Anglemere was famous all the
world over.

Everything spoke in an eloquent and emphatic way of wealth, and Nell
sighed and grew rather pensive, now and again, as she thought of the
denizens of Beaumont Buildings, and the grinding poverty in which their
lives were spent. But that was like Nell--tender-hearted Nell of Shorne
Mills.

Dick came h