It was a pretty place; its name, Sunny Mead, an appropriate one. For the bright sun (not far yet above the horizon) of the clear and cold December day, shone on it cheerily: on the walls of the dwelling-house--on the green grass of the spreading lawn, with its groups of flowering laurestina and encompassing trees, that in summer cast a grateful shade. The house was small, but compact; the prospect from the windows, with its expanse of wood and hill and dale, a charming one. At its best it was a simple, unpretending place, but as pleasant a homestead for moderate desires as could be found in the county of Surrey.

In a snug room, its fire blazing in the grate, its snowy breakfast cloth, laden with china and silver, drawn near the large window that looked upon the lawn, sat the owner, Sir Vincent Yorke, and his cousin Gerald. As soon as breakfast should be over, they were going out shooting; but the baronet was by no means one who liked to disturb his morning\'s comfort by starting at dawn: shooting, as well as everything else in life, he liked to take easily. Gerald had arrived the previous night: it was the first time Gerald had seen Sunny Mead: and the very unpretending rank it took amidst baronets\' dwelling-places, surprised him. Sir Vincent\'s marriage was fixed for the following month, January; and he gratified Gerald much by saying that he thought of asking him to be groomsman.

"Aw!--very happy--immensely so," responded Gerald with his most fashionable drawl, that so grated on a true and honest ear.

"Sunny Mead has this advantage; one can come to it and be quiet," observed Sir Vincent. "There\'s not room for more than three or four servants in it. My father used to call it the homestead: that\'s just what it is, and it doesn\'t pretend to be aught else. More coffee? Try that partridge pie. Have you seen Roland lately?"

The cynical expression of disparagement that pervaded Gerald\'s face at the question, made Sir Vincent smile.

"Aw--I say, don\'t you spoil my breakfast by bringing up him," spoke Gerald. "The best thing he can do is to go out to Port Natal again. A capital pie!"

"This devilled turkey\'s good, too. You\'ll try it presently?" spoke the baronet. "How is Hamish Channing?"

Gerald\'s skin turned of a dark hue. Was Sir Vincent purposely annoying him? Catching up his coffee-cup to take a long draught, he did not answer.

"I never saw so fine a fellow in all my life," resumed Sir Vincent. "Never was so taken with a face at first sight as with his. William Yorke was staying there at the time of my father\'s funeral, and I went next day to call. That\'s how I saw Channing. He promised to come and see me; but somebody told me the other day he was ill."

"Aw--yes," drawled Gerald. "Seedy, I believe."

"What\'s the matter with him?"

"Temper," said Gerald. "Wrote a book, and had some reviews upon it, and it put him out, I hear."

"But it was a first-rate book, Gerald; I read it, and the reviews were all wrong: suppose some contemptible raven of envy scrawled them. The book\'s working its way upwards as fast as it can now."

"Who says so?" cried Gerald.

"I do. I had the information from a reliable source. By-the-way, is there anything in that story of Roland\'s--that he is engaged to Channing\'s sister? or is it fancy?"

"I do wish you\'d let the fellow\'s name be; he\'s not so very good to talk of," retorted Gerald, in a rage.

But Roland was not so easily put out of the conversation. As luck had it, when the servant brought Sir Vincent\'s letters in, there was one from Roland amidst them. Vincent laughed outright as he read it:--

"Dear Vincent,--I happened to overhear old Greatorex say yesterday that Sir Vincent Yorke wanted a working bailiff for the land at Sunny Mead. I! wish! to! offer! myself! for! the! situation! There! I put it strong that you may not mistake. Of course, I am a relative, which I can\'t help being; and a working bailiff is but a kind of upper servant. But I\'ll be very glad of the place if you\'ll give it me, and will do my duty in it as far as I can, putting my best shoulder to the wheel; and I\'ll never presume upon our being cousins to go into your house uninvited, or put myself in your way; and my wife would not call on Lady Yorke if she did not wish it. I\'ll be the bailiff--you the master.

"I don\'t tell you I\'m a first hand at farming; but, if perseverance and sticking to work can teach, I shall soon learn it. I picked up some experience at Port Natal; and had to drive waggons and other animals. I\'m great in pigs. The droves I had to manage of the grunting, obstinate wretches, out there, taught me enough of them. Of course I know all about haymaking; and I\'d used to be one of the company at old Pierce\'s harvest homes, on his farm near Helstonleigh. I don\'t suppose you\'d want me to thresh the wheat myself; but I\'m strong to do it, and would not mind. I would be always up before dawn in spring to see to the young lambs; and I\'d soon acquire the ins and outs of manuring and draining. Do try me, Vincent! I\'ll put my shoulder to the wheel in earnest for you. There\'d be one advantage in taking me--that I should be honest and true to your interests. Whereas some bailiffs like to serve themselves better than their masters.

"As to wages, I\'d leave that to you. You\'d not give less than a hundred a year to begin with; and at the twelvemonth\'s end, when I had made myself qualified, you might make it two. Perhaps you\'d give the two hundred at once. I don\'t wish to presume because I\'m a relative; and if the two hundred would be too much at first (for, to tell the truth, I don\'t know how bailiffs\' pay runs), please excuse my having named it. I expect there are lots of pretty cottages to be hired down there; may be there\'s one on the estate appropriated to the bailiff. I may as well mention that I am a first-rate horseman, and could gallop about like a fire-engine; having nearly lost my life more times than one, learning to ride the wild cattle when up the country at Port Natal.

"I think that\'s all I have to say. Only try me! If you do, you will find how willing I am. Besides being strong, I am naturally active, with plenty of energy: the land should not go to ruin for the want of being looked after. My object in life now is to get a certainty that will bring me in something tolerably good to begin, and go on to three hundred a year, or more; for I should not like Annabel to take pupils always. I don\'t know whether a bailiff ever gets as much.

"Bede Greatorex can give you a good character of me for steadiness and industry. And if I have stuck to this work, I should do better by yours; for writing I hate, and knocking about a farm I\'d like better than anything.

"You\'ll let me have an answer as soon as convenient. If you take me I shall have to order leggings and other suitable toggery from Carrick\'s tailor; and he might be getting on with the things.

"Wishing you a merry Christmas, which will soon be here (don\'t I recollect one of mine at Port Natal, when I had nothing for dinner and the same for supper), I remain, dear Vincent, yours truly,

"Roland Yorke.

"Sir Vincent Yorke."

To watch the curl of Gerald\'s lip, the angry sarcasm of his face, as he perused this document, which the baronet handed to him with a laugh, was amusing. It might have made a model of scorn for a painter\'s easel. Dropping the letter from his fingers, as if there were contamination in its very touch, he flicked it across the table.

"You\'ll send it back to him in a blank envelope, won\'t you?"

"No; why should I?" returned Sir Vincent, who was good-natured in the main, easy on the whole. "I\'ll answer him when I\'ve time. Do you know, Gerald, I think you rather disparage Roland."

Gerald opened his astonished eyes. "Disparage him! How can he be disparaged?--he is just as low as he can be. An awful blot, nothing else, on the family escutcheon."

"The family don\'t seem to be troubled much by him--saving me. He appears to regard me as a sheet-anchor--who can provide for the world, himself included. I rather like the young fellow; he is so genuine."

"Don\'t call him young," reproved Gerald; "he\'ll be twenty-nine next May."

"And in mind and manners he is nineteen."

"He talks of pigs--see what he has brought his to," exclaimed Gerald, somewhat forgetting his fashion. "The--aw--low kind of work he condescends to do--the mean way he is not ashamed to confess he lives in! Every bit of family pride has gone out of him, and given place to vulgar instincts."

"As Roland has tumbled into the mire, better for him to be honest and work," returned Sir Vincent, mincing with his dry toast and one poached egg, for he was delicate in appetite. "What else could he do? Of course there\'s the credit system and periodical whitewashings, but I should not care to go in for that kind of thing myself."

"Are you in want of a bailiff?" growled Gerald, wondering whether the last remarks were meant to be personal.

"Greatorex has eng............