airyland. You must see the
house, with its lovely old carvings, and pictures, and old, old
furniture; and the arms of the family that built it carved and painted
everywhere, on doors and chairs and mantelpieces."

"Of the family that built it?" repeated Mr. Shubrick. "Not the family
that owns it now?"

"No. You see their arms too, but the others are the oldest. And then it
would take you hours to go through the gardens. There are different
gardens; one, most exquisite, framed in with trees, and a fountain in
the middle, and all the beds filled with rare plants. But I do not like
anything about the place better than these trees and greensward."

"It must be a difficult thing," said Sandie meditatively, "to use it
all for Christ."

Dolly was silent a while. "I don't see how it _could_ be used so," she
said.

The other made no answer. They went slowly on and on, getting up to the
higher ground and more level going, while the sun's rays coming a
little more slant as the afternoon declined, gave an increasing
picturesqueness to the scene. Mr. Shubrick had been for some time
almost entirely silent, when Dolly proposed to stop and rest.

"One enjoys it better so," she said. "One has better leisure to look.
And I wanted to talk to you, besides."

Her companion was very willing, and they took their places under a
great oak, on the swell of greensward at the foot of it. Ground and
grass and moss were all dry. Dolly sat down and laid off her hat;
however, the proposed "talk" did not seem to be ready, and she let Mr.
Shubrick wait.

"I wanted to ask you something," said she at last. "I have been wanting
to ask you something for a good while."

There she stopped. She was not looking at him; she was taking care not
to look at him; she was trying to regard Mr. Shubrick as a foreign
abstraction. Seeing which, he began to look at her more persistently
than hitherto.

"What is it?" he asked, with not a little curiosity.

"There is nobody else I can ask," Dolly went on; "and if you could give
me the help I want, it would be a great thing for me."

"I will if I can."

The young man's eyes did not turn away now. And Dolly was an
excessively pretty thing to look at; so taken up with her own thoughts
that she was in no danger of finding out that she was an object of
attention or perhaps admiration. Her companion perceived this, and
indulged his eyes fearlessly. Dolly's fair, flushed face was thin with
the work and the care o