tidings received by Baslehurst with all that horror,--with
that loud clamour of indignation,--which Tappitt conceived to be due
to them. Baslehurst, I should say, as a whole, received the tidings
with applause. Why should not Bungall's nephew carry on a brewery of
his own? Especially why should he not, if he were resolved to brew
good beer? Very censorious remarks about the Tappitt beer were to
be heard in all bar-rooms, and were re-echoed with vehemence in the
kitchens of the Baslehurst aristocracy.

"It ain't beer," said Dr. Harford's cook, who had come from the
midland counties, and knew what good beer was. "It's a nasty muddle
of stuff, not fit for any Christian who has to earn her victuals over
a kitchen fire."

It came to pass speedily that Luke Rowan was expected to build a new
brewery, and that the event of the first brick was looked for with
anxious expectation. And that false report which had spread itself
through Baslehurst respecting him and his debts had taken itself off.
It had been banished by a contrary report; and there now existed in
Baslehurst a very general belief that Rowan was a man of means,--of
very considerable means,--a man of substantial capital, whom to
have settled in the town would be very beneficial to the community.
That false statement as to the bill at Griggs' had been sifted, and
the truth made known,--and somewhat to the disgrace of the Tappitt
faction. The only article supplied by Griggs to Rowan's order had
been the champagne consumed at Tappitt's supper, and for this Rowan
had paid ready money within a week of the transaction. It was Mrs.
Cornbury who discovered all this, and who employed means for making
the truth known in Baslehurst. This truth also became known at last
to Mrs. Ray,--but of what avail was it then? She had desired her
daughter to treat the young man as a wolf, and as a wolf he had been
hounded off from her little sheep-cot. She heard now that he was
expected back at Baslehurst;--that he was a wealthy man; that he was
thought well of in the town; that he was going to do great things.
With what better possible husband could any young woman have been
blessed? And yet she had turned him away from her cottage as though
he had been a wolf!

It was from Mrs. Sturt that Mrs. Ray first learned the truth. Mr.
Sturt was a tenant on the Cornbury estate, and Mrs. Sturt was of
course well known to Mrs. Cornbury. That lady, when she had sifted to
the bottom the story of Grig