may remove that ladder. His
lordship can have no use for it here."

"Oh, come, come, Miss Blythe," said his lordship. "Manorial rights,
manorial rights. This laburnum overhangs the road and prevents people of
an average height from passing."

"If your lordship is aggrieved I must ask your lordship to secure a
remedy in a legal manner."

"But really now. Observe, Miss Blythe, I can't walk under these boughs
without knocking my hat off." He illustrated this statement by walking
under the boughs. His cap fell on the dusty road, and Joseph, having
picked it up, returned it to him.

"Your lordship is above the average height," said Miss Blythe--
"considerably."

"No, no," the earl protested. "Not at all, not at all."

"I beg your lordship's pardon," said the little old lady, with stately
politeness. "Nobody," she added, "who was not profoundly disloyal would
venture to describe the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty as undersized. I
am but a barleycorn less in stature than her Most Excellent Majesty, and
your lordship is yards taller than myself."

"My dear Miss Blythe--" his lordship began, with hands raised in protest
against this statement.

"Your lordship will pardon me," Miss Blythe interposed, swiftly, "if
I say that at my age--forgive me if I say at your lordship's also--the
language of conventional gallantry is unbecoming."

The little old lady said this with so starched and prim an air, and
through this there peeped so obvious a satisfaction in rebuking him upon
such a theme, that his lordship had to flourish his handkerchief from
his pocket to hide his laughter.

"I have passed the last quarter of a century of my life," pursued Miss
Blythe, "in an intimate if humble capacity in the service of a family of
the loftiest nobility. I am not unacquainted with the airs and graces
of the higher powers, but between your lordship and myself, at our
respective ages, I cannot permit them to be introduced."

His lordship had a fit of coughing which lasted him two or three
minutes, and brought the tears to his eyes. Most people might have
thought that the cough bore a suspicious resemblance to laughter, but no
such idea occurred to Miss Blythe.

"You are quite right, Miss Blythe," said the old nobleman, when he could
trust himself to speak. He was twitching and twinkling with suppressed
mirth, but he contained himself heroically. "I beg your pardon, and I
promise that I will not again transgress in that manner. But r