fodder for the cattle in winter.'

'And give up Plaistow Hall?' asked Clara.

'Lord love you, no. I've a matter of nine hundred acres on hand there,
and most of it under the plough. I've counted it up, and it would just
cost me a thousand pounds to stock this place. I should come and look
at it twice a year or so, and I should see my money home again, if I
didn't get any profit out of it.'

Mr Amedroz was astonished. The man had only been in his house one
night, and was proposing to take all his troubles off his hands. He did
not relish the proposition at all. He did not like to be accused of not
doing as well for himself as others could do for him. He did not wish
to make any change although he remembered at the moment his anger with
Farmer Stovey respecting the haycarts. He did not desire that the heir
should have any immediate interest in the place. But he was not strong
enough to meet the proposition with a direct negative. 'I couldn't get
rid of Stovey in that way,' he said, plaintively. I've settled it all
with Stovey already,' said Belton. 'He'll be glad enough to walk off
with a twenty-pound note, which I'll give him. He can't make money out
of the place. He hasn't got means to stock it, and then see the wages
that hay-making runs away with! He'd lose by it even at what he's
paying, and he knows it. There won't be any difficulty about Stovey.'

By twelve o'clock on that day Mr Stovey had been brought into the
house, and had resigned the land. It had been let to Mr William Belton
at an increased rental a rental increased by nearly forty pounds per
annum and that gentleman had already made many of his arrangements for
entering upon his tenancy. The twenty pounds had already been paid to