'Dear Phoebe,' cried Cecily, 'I am so thankful that she is spared a long
attachment. It was telling on her already!'

'Oh, we should have put a stop to the affair if he had gone out to
Canada,' roundly asserted Mervyn; 'but of course he knew better--'

'Not at all--this was quite a surprise.'

Mervyn recollected in time that it was best that Miss Charlecote should
so imagine, and reserved for his wife's private ear his conviction that
the young fellow had had this hope in his eye when refusing the
partnership. Such smartness and foresight commanded his respect as a man
of the world, though maybe the women would not understand it. For
Phoebe's interest, he must encourage the lady in her excellent
intentions.

'It is very handsome in you, Miss Charlecote--very handsome--and I am
perfectly unprejudiced in assuring you that you have done the very best
thing for yourself. Phoebe is a good girl, and devoted to you already.'

'Indeed she is,' said Cecily. 'She looks up to you so much!'

Somehow Honor did not want Mrs. Fulmort to assure her of this.

'And as to the place,' continued Mervyn, 'you could not put it into
better hands to get your people out of their Old World ways. A young man
like that, used to farming, and with steam and mechanics at his fingers'
ends, will make us all look about us.'

'Perhaps,' murmured poor Honor, with quailing heart.

'John Raymond and I were looking about the Holt the other day,' said
Mervyn, 'and agreeing how much more could be made of it. Clear away some
of those hedgerows--grub up a bit of copse or two--try chemical
manures--drain that terrible old marsh beyond the plantation--and have up
a good engine-house where you have those old ramshackle buildings at the
Home Farm! Why, the place will bring in as much again, and you've hit on
the very man to carry it out. He shall try all the experiments before I
adopt them.'

Honora felt as if she must flee! If she were to hear any more she should
be ready to banish young Randolf to Canada, were he ten times her heir.
Had she lived to hear Humfrey's new barn, with the verge boards conceded
to her taste, called ramshackle? And she had given her word!

As she left Beauchamp, and looked at her scraggy pine-trees cresting the
hill, she felt as though they were her own no longer, and as if she had
given them up to an enemy. She assured herself that nothing could be
done without her free-will, and considered of the limitations t