After breakfast they drove along the river road, behind an excellent team
of bay horses, for a distance of about two miles, and drew up in front of
a large brick house.

"This is our farm, Mr. Sparrow. We will drive on to the farm and come
back to the house later."

Everything indicated thrift and prosperity. There was a great barn and
stables, a capacious warehouse, out-buildings of all sorts, corn houses,
hayricks, and a building for wheat, while nearby was a shed full of
modern agricultural machinery. They walked through the stables; five fine
horses occupied the stalls, while close at hand were not fewer than a
dozen Jersey cows.

Mr. Quintin was busy describing everything--and he knew all about
everything: buildings, their uses and cost; the horses, as he stroked the
nose of each--breed, age, peculiarities. Each cow and heifer he knew by
name and age. The machinery--he was familiar with its make and use as
well as its cost. If his eyes had been bandaged, apparently he could have
described everything on Monastery Farm.

They next drove back to the farmhouse. It was a substantial brick
building, containing twelve spacious rooms, furnished with plain, rather
old-fashioned furniture, and set back from the river road about three
hundred yards; it was surrounded by a well-kept lawn, and in all
respects, the place was inviting and homelike.

"Mr. Sparrow," said Quintin, "this farm contains two hundred and two
acres of arable land, good land, no better, in fact, in the country.
Besides, we have twenty acres of wooded land and a tenant house. This