haped and delicately pinked foliage of the field carrots,
and with her cousin's assistance she soon had a large bouquet where no
two leaves were alike, their hues ranging from the deepest purple or
crimson to the palest yellow, or clear scarlet, like seaweed, through
every intermediate variety of purple edged with green, green picked out
with red or yellow, or _vice versa_, in never-ending brilliancy, such as
Humfrey almost seemed to appreciate, as he said, 'Well, you have
something as pretty as your weeds, eh, Honor?'

'I can't quite give up mourning for my dear long purples.'

'All very well by the river, but there's no beauty in things out of
place, like your Louis in Egypt--well, what was the end of this
predicament?'

So Humfrey had really heard and been interested! With such
encouragement, Honora proceeded swimmingly, and had nearly arrived at her
hero's ransom, through nearly a mile of field paths, only occasionally
interrupted by grunts from her auditor at farming not like his own, when
crossing a narrow foot-bridge across a clear stream, they stood before a
farmhouse, timbered and chimneyed much like the Holt, but with new sashes
displacing the old lattice.

'Oh! Humfrey, how could you bring me to see such havoc? I never
suspected you would allow it.'

'It was without asking leave; an attention to his bride; and now they
want an abatement for improvements! Whew!'

'You should fine him for the damage he has done!'

'I can't be hard on him, he is more or less of an ass, and a good sort of
fellow, very good to his labourers; he drove Jem Hurd to the infirmary
himself when he broke his arm. No, he is not a man to be hard upon.'

'You can't be hard on any one. Now that window really irritates my
mind.'

'Now Sarah walked down to call on the bride, and came home full of
admiration at the place being so lightsome and cheerful. Which of you
two ladies am I to believe?'

'You ought to make it a duty to improve the general taste! Why don't you
build a model farm-house, and let me make the design?'

'Ay, when I want one that nobody can live in. Come, it will be breakfast
time.'

'Are not you going to have an interview?'

'No, I only wanted to take a survey of the alterations; two windows,
smart door, iron fence, pulled down old barn, talks of another. Hm!'

'So he will get his reduction?'

'If he builds the barn. I shall try to see his wife; she has not been
brought up to farming, and whether