particulars as he could collect; and a few days afterward Mr. Hazeldean
received a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a
very respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for
Clump Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did
not shoot--lived in great seclusion--and, having no family, did not care
about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made
weather-proof--if the omission of more expensive reparations could render
the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited. The offer
came at a fortunate moment--when the steward had just been representing
to the Squire the necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from
falling into positive ruin, and the Squire was cursing the fates which
had put the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull it down for
the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore, caught at the proposal
even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom,
catches at last at some battered old Captain on half-pay, and replied
that, as for rent, if the solicitors client was a quiet respectable man,
he did not care for that. But that the gentleman might have it for the
first year rent free, on condition of paying the taxes and putting the
place a little in order. If they suited each other, they could then come
to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply, Signer Riccabocca
and his servant arrived; and, before the years end, the Squire was so
contented with his tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent nearly nominal, on condition
that Signer Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in repair,
barring the roof and fences, which the Squire generously renewed at his
own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a pretty
place the Italian had made of it, and what is more astonishing, how
little it had cost him. He had indeed painted the walls of the hall,
staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own hands. His
servant had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two between them
had got the garden into order. The Italians seemed to have taken a joint
love to the place, and to deck it as they would have done some favorite
chapel to their Madonna.

It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways of
the foreign settlers. The first thing that offended them was the
exceeding smallness of the househ