ith pride of ownership, plotting alterations and restorations at each
turn; halting in their tracks to argue, spreading apart to embrace two
views at once, or closing in to consider one. Couples moved out of their
way, but smiling covertly.

"We shall make some bad breaks," he said at last.

"Together, though. You won't let anyone else in, will you?"

"Except the contractors. This syndicate handles, this proposition by its
little lone."

"But you might feel the want of some one," she insisted.

"I shall--but it will be you. It's business, Sophie, but it's going to
be good fun."

"Please God," she answered flushing, and cried to herself as they went
back to tea. "It's worth it. Oh, it's worth it."

The repairing and moving into Friars Pardon was business of the most
varied and searching, but all done English fashion, without friction.
Time and money alone were asked. The rest lay in the hands of beneficent
advisers from London, or spirits, male and female, called up by Mr. and
Mrs. Cloke from the wastes of the farms. In the centre stood George and
Sophie, a little aghast, their interests reaching out on every side.

"I ain't sayin' anything against Londoners," said Cloke, self-appointed
clerk of the outer works, consulting engineer, head of the immigration
bureau, and superintendent of woods and forests; "but your own people
won't go about to make more than a fair profit out of you."

"How is one to know?" said George.

"Five years from now, or so on, maybe, you'll be lookin' over your first
year's accounts, and, knowin' what you'll know then, you'll say: 'Well,
Billy Beartup'--or Old Cloke as it might be--'did me proper when I was
new.' No man likes to have that sort of thing laid up against him."

"I think I see," said George. "But five years is a long time to look
ahead."

"I doubt if that oak Billy Beartup throwed in Reuben's Ghyll will be fit
for her drawin-room floor in less than seven," Cloke drawled.

"Yes, that's my work," said Sophie. (Billy Beartup of Griffons,
a woodman by training and birth, a tenant farmer by misfortune of
marriage, had laid his broad axe at her feet a month before.) "Sorry if
I've committed you to another eternity."

"And we shan't even know where we've gone wrong with your new carriage
drive before that time either," said Cloke, ever anxious to keep the
balance true with an ounce or two in Sophie's favour. The past four
months had taught George better than to reply. The ca