t once on his favourite topic,--"I believe you! I'm
making the mare go here in Whitford, without the money too, sometimes.
I'm steward now, bailiff--ha! ha! these four years past--to Mrs.
Lavington's Irish husband; I wanted him to have a regular agent, a
canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it,
and so fell back on old Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the
votes and the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest
pretty much, my own way."

When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed Stangrave
start; and an expression passed over his face difficult to be
defined--it seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. He turned to
Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough for Mark to hear,--

"Lavington? Is this their country also? As I am going to visit the
graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those of hers."

Mark caught the words which he was not intended to.

"Eh? Sir, do you belong to these parts?"

"My family, I believe, lived in the neighbourhood of Whitbury, at a
place called Stangrave-end."

"To be sure! Old farm-house now; fine old oak carving in it, though;
fine old family it must have been; church full of their monuments.
Hum,--ha! Well! that's pleasant, now! I've often heard there were good
old families away there in New England; never thought that there were
Whitbury people among them. Hum--well! the world's not so big as
people think, after all. And you spoke of the Lavingtons? They are
great folks here--or were--" He was going to rattle on: but he saw a
pained expression on both the travellers' faces, and Stangrave stopped
him, somewhat drily--

"I know nothing of them, I assure you, or they of me. Your country
here is certainly charming, and shows little of those signs of decay
which some people in America impute to it."

"Decay!" Mark went off at score. "Decay be hanged? There's life in the
old dog yet, sir! and dead pigs are looking up since free trade and
emigration. Cheap bread and high wages now: and instead of lands
going out of cultivation, as they threatened--bosh! there's a greater
breadth down in wheat in the vale now than there ever was; and look
at the roots. Farmers must farm now, or sink; and by George! they are
farming, like sensible fellows: and a fig for that old turnip ghost of
Protection! There was a fellow came down from the Carlton--you know
what that is!" Stangrave bowed, and smiled assent. "From the Carl