ned to him to speak out.

"A11 right?" asked Valencia. "Then you are not going?"

"Ay, but I am! Orders to join my regiment by the first of October, and
to be shot as soon afterwards as is fitting for the honour of my
country. So, Miss Val, you must be quick in making good friends with the
heir-at-law; or else you won't get your bills paid any more."

"Oh, dear, dear!" And Valencia began to cry bitterly. It was her first
real sorrow.

Strangely enough, Major Campbell, instead of trying to comfort her, took
Scoutbush out with him, and left her alone with her tears. He could not
rest till he had opened the whole cholera question.

Scoutbush was honestly shocked. Who would have dreamed it? No one had
ever told him that the cholera had really been there before. What could
he do? Send for Thurnall?

Tom was sent for; and Scoutbush found, to his horror, that what little
he could have ever done ought to have been done three months ago, with
Lord Minchampstead's improvements at Pentremochyn.

The little man walked up and down, and wrung his hands. He cursed
Tardrew for not telling him the truth; he cursed himself for letting the
cottages go out of his power; he cursed A, B, and C, for taking the said
cottages off his hands; he cursed up, he cursed down, he cursed all
around, things which ought to have been cursed, and things which really
ought not--for half of the worst sanatory sinners, in this blessed age
of ignorance, yclept of progress and science (how our grandchildren will
laugh at the epithets!) are utterly unconscious and guiltless ones.

But cursing leaves him, as it leaves other men, very much where he had
started.

To do him justice, he was in one thing a true nobleman, for he was above
all pride; as are most men of rank, who know what their own rank means.
It is only the upstart, unaccustomed to his new eminence, who stands on
his dignity, and "asserts his power."

So Scoutbush begged humbly of Thurnall only to tell him what he could
do.

"You might use your moral influence, my lord."

"Moral influence?" in a tone which implied naively enough, "I'd better
get a little morals myself before I talk of using the same."

"Your position in the parish--"

"My good sir!" quoth Scoutbush in his shrewd way; "do you not know
yourself what these fine fellows who were ready yesterday to kiss the
dust off my feet would say, if I asked leave to touch a single hair of
their rights?--'Tell you what, my lord; we pays