Everything spoke in an eloquent and emphatic way of wealth, and Nell

sighed and grew rather pensive, now and again, as she thought of the

denizens of Beaumont Buildings, and the grinding poverty in which their

lives were spent. But that was like Nell--tender-hearted Nell of Shorne

Mills.

Dick came home to dinner, tired, and approved of the steak, which, he

declared, beat even the ham and eggs.

"We're getting on first-rate," he said, in answer to Nell's inquiry;

"and I'm afraid we shan't make a very long stay here. I'd hoped that

this job would spin out for--oh, ever so long; but it will have to be

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pushed through in a few weeks. They're waking up at the house like mad.

Money makes the mare go! And there's no end to the money this young lord

has got. But, from all I hear, he's a decent sort----"

Nell laughed.

"Please don't you begin to sing his praises, Dick," she said. "I've

heard a general chorus of laudations all the morning, and I think I am

just a wee bit tired of my Lord of Angleford! Though I'm very grateful

to him for this change! I wish we could turn lodgekeepers, Dick! Fancy

living here always!"

They were seated in the porch--Dick smoking away furiously--and she

gazed wistfully at the greensward, and the trunks of the great elms

glowing like copper in the rays of the setting sun.

"And, oh, Dick!" she cried, "if only Mr. Falconer could be here! How he

would enjoy it! He's always talking of the country, and how much good it

would do him!"

"Poor beggar--yes!" said Dick, with a nod of sympathy. "I say, Nell, why

shouldn't we ask him to pay us a visit?"

Nell grew radiant at the suggestion; then looked doubtful.

"But may we?" she asked. "This isn't our lodge, Dick; though I have

begun to feel as if it were."

"Nonsense!" said Dick emphatically. "The agent placed it absolutely at

our disposal. A nice state of things if we couldn't ask a friend! Have

Britons--especially engineers--become slaves? I pause for a reply. No?

Good! Then I'll write him a line that will fetch him down--with his

fiddle! What a pity we haven't got a piano!"

Nell laughed.

"Yes, we could put it in the sitting room, and look at it through the

window; for there certainly wouldn't be room inside for it and us

together!"

Dick wrote the next day, and Falconer walked up and down his bare and

narrow room, with the letter in his hand, his thin face flushing and

then paling with longing and doubt. To be in the country, in the same

house with her! And yet--would it not be wiser to refuse? His love grew

large enough when it was only fed on memory; it would grow beyond

restraint in such close companionship. Better to refuse and remain where

he was than to go near her, and so increase the store of agony which the

final parting would bring him. And so, after the manner of weak man, he

sat down and wrote a line, accepting.




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