"Can you wonder at it, and you talk of cannibals?"

"Let us change the conversation to cereals," suggested Hope,
whose appetite was of the best--"wheat, for instance. In this
queer little village I notice the houses are divided by a field
of wheat. It seems wrong somehow for corn to be bunched up with
houses."

"That's old Farmer Jenkins," said Lucy vivaciously; "he owns
three or four acres near the public-house and will not allow them
to be built over, although he has been offered a lot of money. I
noticed myself, Archie, the oddity of finding a cornfield
surrounded by cottages. It's like Alice in Wonderland."

"But fancy any one offering money for land here," observed Hope,
toying with his claret glass, which had just been refilled, by
the attentive Cockatoo, "at the Back-of-Beyond, as it were. I
shouldn't care to live here--the neighborhood is so desolate."

"All the same you do live here!" interposed Mrs. Jasher smartly,
and with a roguish glance at Lucy.

Archie caught the glance and saw the blush on Miss Kendal's face.

"You have answered your question yourself, Mrs. Jasher," he--
said, smiling. "I have the inducement you hint at to remain
here, and certainly, as a landscape painter, I admire the marshes
and sunsets. As an artist and an engaged man I stop in Gartley,
otherwise I should clear out. But I fail to see why a lady of
your attractions should--"