nish you, that they've
gone on a mere verbal permission. What's the extent of the glebe?"

"They call it forty-two acres."

"Did you ever have it measured?"

"Never. It would make no difference to me whether it is forty-one or
forty-three."

"That's as may be," said the lawyer. "It's as nasty a thing as I've
looked at for many a day, but it wouldn't do to call it a nuisance."

"Of course not. Janet is very hot about it; but, as for me, I've made
up my mind to swallow it. After all, what harm will it do me?"

"It's an insult,--that's all."

"But if I can show that I don't take it as an insult, the insult will
be nothing. Of course the people know that their landlord is trying
to spite me."

"That's just it."

"And for awhile they'll spite me too, because he does. Of course it's
a bore. It cripples one's influence, and to a certain degree spreads
dissent at the cost of the Church. Men and women will go to that
place merely because Lord Trowbridge favours the building. I know all
that, and it irks me; but still it will be better to swallow it."

"Who's the oldest man in the parish?" asked Mr. Quickenham; "the
oldest with his senses still about him." The parson reflected for
awhile, and then said that he thought Brattle, the miller, was as
old a man as there was there, with the capability left to him of
remembering and of stating what he remembered. "And what's his
age,--about?" Fenwick said that the miller was between sixty and
seventy, and had lived in Bullhampton all his life. "A church-going
man?" asked the lawyer. To this the Vicar was obliged to reply that,
to his very great regret, old Brattle never entered a church. "Then
I'll step over and see him during morning service to-morrow," said
the lawyer. The Vicar raised his eyebrows, but said nothing as to
the propriety of Mr. Quickenham's personal attendance at a place of
worship on Good Friday.

"Can anything be done, Richard?" said Mrs. Fenwick, appealing to her
brother-in-law.

"Yes;--undoubtedly something can be done."

"Can there, indeed? I am so glad. What can be done?"

"You can make the best of it."

"That's just what I'm determined I won't do. It's mean-spirited, and
so I tell Frank. I never would have hurt them as long as they treated
us well; but now they are enemies, and as enemies I will regard them.
I should think myself disgraced if I were to sit down in the presence
of the Marquis of Trowbridge; I should, indeed."

"You can easily