; only be lovely!

'Uncaring,' however, little Lady Helen never was. If she was a fairy,
she was a fairy all heart, all frank, foolish smiles and tears.

'No, Lady Helen--no,' Robert said again. 'This is no place for you, and
we are getting on capitally.'

She pouted a little.

'I believe you and Mrs. Elsmere are just killing yourselves all in a
corner, with no one to see,' she said indignantly. 'If you won't let
me see, I shall send Sir Harry. But who'--and her brown fawn's eyes
ran startled over the cottages before her--'who, Mr. Elsmere, does this
_dreadful_ place belong to?'

'Mr. Wendover,' said Robert shortly.

'Impossible!' she cried incredulously. 'Why, I wouldn't ask one of my
dogs to sleep there,' and she pointed to the nearest hovel, whereof the
walls were tottering outward, the thatch was falling to pieces, and the
windows were mended with anything that came handy--rags, paper, or the
crown of an old hat.

'No, you would be ill-advised' said Robert, looking with a bitter little
smile at the sleek dachshund that sat blinking beside its mistress.

'But what is the agent about?'

Then Robert told her the story, not mincing his words. Since the
epidemic had begun, all that sense of imaginative attraction which had
been reviving in him toward the Squire had been simply blotted out by
a fierce heat of indignation. When he thought of Mr. Wendover now, he
thought of him as the man to whom in strict truth it was owing that
helpless children died in choking torture. All that agony, of wrath and
pity he had gone through in the last ten days sprang to his lips now as
he talked to Lady Helen, and poured itself into his words.

'Old Meyrick and I have taken things into our own hands now,' he said
at last briefly. 'We have already made two cottages fairly habitable.
To-morrow the inspector comes. I told the people yesterday I wouldn't be
bound by my promise a day longer. He must put the screw on Henslowe, and
if Henslowe dawdles, why we shall just drain and repair and sink for a
well, ourselves. I can find the money somehow. At present we get all our
water from one of the farms on the brow.'

'Money!' said Lady Helen impulsively, her looks warm with sympathy for
the pale, harassed young rector. 'Sir Harry shall send you as much as
you want. And anything else--blankets--coals?'

Out came her notebooks and Robert was drawn into a list. Then, full
of joyfulness at being allowed to help, she gathered up her reins