ght the estate (five hundred acres, I
think he said,) on which he was born, and now was setting himself to
cultivate it in downright earnest, going to Holkham and Woburn, and half
the country over, to get himself up on the subject."

"It would be Brooke, that dissenting baker from Birmingham," said my lady
in her most icy tone. "Mr. Smithson, I am sorry I have been detaining
you so long, but I think these are the letters you wished to see."

If her ladyship thought by this speech to quench Mr. Smithson she was
mistaken. Mr. Smithson just looked at the letters, and went on with the
old subject.

"Now, my lady, it struck me that if you had such a man to take poor
Horner's place, he would work the rents and the land round most
satisfactorily. I should not despair of inducing this very man to
undertake the work. I should not mind speaking to him myself on the
subject, for we got capital friends over a snack of luncheon that he
asked me to share with him."

Lady Ludlow fixed her eyes on Mr. Smithson as he spoke, and never took
them off his face until he had ended. She was silent a minute before she
answered.

"You are very good, Mr. Smithson, but I need not trouble you with any
such arrangements. I am going to write this afternoon to Captain James,
a friend of one of my sons, who has, I hear, been severely wounded at
Trafalgar, to request him to honour me by accepting Mr. Horner's
situation."

"A Captain James! A captain in the navy! going to manage your ladyship's
estate!"

"If he will be so kind. I shall esteem it a condescension on his part;
but I hear that he will have to resign his profession, his state of
health is so bad, and a country life is especially prescribed for him. I
am in some hopes of tempting him here, as I learn he has but little to
depend on if he gives up his profession."

"A Captain James! an invalid captain!"

"You think I am asking too great a favour," continued my lady. (I never
could tell how far it was simplicity, or how far a kind of innocent
malice, that made her misinterpret Mr. Smithson's words and looks as she
did.) "But he is not a post-captain, only a commander, and his pension
will be but small. I may be able, by offering him country air and a
healthy occupation, to restore him to health."

"Occupation! My lady, may I ask how a sailor is to manage land? Why,
your tenants will laugh him to scorn."

"My tenants, I trust, will not behave so ill as to laugh at any o