For two days not a word was spoken on the sore subject between father and Mr. Harrod, and on the evening of the second day the returned from town.  
Father and I had gone down on the morning after the quarrel to see the sheep-shearing at the lower farm. By a of the name of a former owner the country-folk had come to call it "Pharisee Farm," and Pharisee Farm it always was. It lay on the lower strip of towards the castle, with the southern sun full upon it. As we came down the hill I heard steps behind us, and without turning I knew that Trayton Harrod was following us. Father gave him good-day quite civilly, and I held out my hand. I do not know why I had got into the habit of giving my hand to Trayton Harrod; it was not a usual habit with me.
 
"It has turned a bit cooler, Mr. Maliphant, hasn't it?" said Harrod.
 
"Yes," answered father; "but we must be glad we have had the rain before we had to get the hay in."
 
"That we must," replied Harrod. "The hay looks beautiful."
 
We were passing along through the meadows ready for the ; they stretched on every side of us. Meadows for hay, pastures for sheep, there was scarcely anything else, save here and there a blue turnip-field or a of sown brown land, where the wheat made as yet no show. The one little homestead to which we were bound made a very poor effect in the vast plain; there was nothing but land and sea and sky. A great deal of land, flat land, more monotonous now in its richness and the brilliant greenness of its early summer-time than it would be later when the corn was ripe and the flowering grasses turning to brown: an uneventful land, relying for its impressiveness on its broad , that seemed to have no reason for ending or change; above the great stretch of earth a great of blue sky flecked with white and lined with long opal clouds out towards the horizon; between the land and the sky a strip of blue sea both together; sea, blue as a against the green of the spring pastures. Far down here upon the level we could not see the belt of yellow that from the cliff above one could tell divided marsh and ocean: right across the wide space it was one stretch of lightly away to the and the buildings at the mouth of the river.
 
We walked on, three . Our talk was of nothing in particular; only of the budding summer flowers—yellow , and meadowsweet along the dikes, crowfoot making golden patches on the meadows, poppies beginning to appear among the growing wheat—but I don't know how it was that, in spite of father's presence, there was a kind of feeling in my heart as though Trayton Harrod and I were quite on a different plane to what we had been two days ago; I don't know why it was, but I was very happy.
 
The sheep were gathered in the fold when we reached the farm, and Tom Beale, the shepherd, was clipping them with swift and hands. Reuben and his old dog Luck were there also; they were both of them very fond of having a finger in the pie of their former calling, but I think there was no love lost between them all. Luck could be good friends enough with Taff, but he never could that smart young collie who followed Tom Beale's lead; and as for Reuben, he was busy already passing comments in a low voice to father on the way in which Beale was doing his work.
 
Father humored the old man to the top of his —he was very fond of Reuben—but Beale went his way all the same, and sent one poor patient ewe after another out of its heavy fleece, to leap, amazed and frightened, among the flock, unable to trace its companions in their altered condition. One could scarcely help laughing, they looked so naked and bewildered reft of their warm covering, and just about two-thirds their usual size.
 
"Ay, the lambs won't have much more good o' their dams now," Reuben. "They're forced to wean themselves, most on them, after this, for there are few enough that knows one another again."
 
"They do look different, to be sure," laughed I.
 
"You might get your 'tiver' now, Reuben Ruck," said Beale, "if you have a mind to give a hand with this job. They're most on 'em tarred."
 
 
The "tiver" was the red chalk with which the sheep were to be marked down their backs, or with a ring or a half-ring round their necks, according to the kind and the age. A shepherd had been tarring them on their hindquarters with father's initials, each one as it leaped from out of its fleece.
 
The work went on briskly for a while, and we were all silent watching Reuben mark the two and three and four year olds apart.
 
"It's a pity there aren't more Southdowns among the flock," put in Harrod at last.
 
I turned round and looked at him warningly. It was a mistake, I thought, that under the strained relations of the moment he should choose to open up another question.
 
"Southdowns!" echoed Reuben, who was listening. "You'd drop a deal o' master's money if you began getting Southdowns into his flocks."
 
I bit my lip, furious with the old servant for his officiousness, but to my surprise father himself reprimanded him sharply for it, and, turning to his bailiff, led him aside a few steps and discussed the question with him at length. My heart glowed with pleasure as I overheard him commission Harrod to go to the fair at Ashford next week and see if he could effect some satisfactory purchase. I was quite pleased to note Reuben's surly looks. How sadly was I changing to my old friends! And yet so much more pleased was I to see the honest flush of satisfaction on Harrod's face as father left him, that I felt no further against the old man, and nodded to him gayly as I followed father across the marsh.
 
When we reached the bottom of the hill we met the squire. He was coming down the road full with the collie who was his constant companion, and before we came within ear-shot I could see that his face was troubled. I knew him well enough now to tell when he was troubled.
 
"Why, Maliphant, what's this I hear?" said he, as he came up to us.
 
Father leaned forward on his stick, looking at the squire with a half-amused, half-defiant expression in his eyes.
 
"Well, Squire Broderick, what is it?" asked he.
 
"I hear in the village that you have leased 'The Elms,'" answered the other, almost .
 
I happened to be looking at father, and I could see that his face changed.
 
"Yes," he said, quietly, "I have. What then?"
 
The squire laughed .
 
"Well," he began, and then he stopped, and then he began again. "'Tis a large . What made you think of it?"
 
"Mr. Harrod advised father to take on 'The Elms,'" I put in, quickly. I was vexed with the squire for saying anything that was a disadvantage to Trayton Harrod in the present state of affairs.
 
"Harrod!" cried the squire. He began beating his boot with his stick in that way he had when he was annoyed. "I thought it was Hoad," he said at last beneath his breath.
 
Father's eyes were black . "Pray don't trouble yourself to think who it was who advised me, squire," said he. "If it's a bad speculation nobody is to blame but myself. I am my own master. I was told 'The Elms' was to be had, and I chose to take it. My hop-gardens were not as extensive as I wished."
 
He had raised his voice involuntarily in speaking. A man passing in the road turned round and looked at him.
 
", father," whispered I.
 
It was one of his own , one of father's special friends.
 
"Wait a bit, Joe Jenkins, I'm coming up the road. I want a word with you," said father.
 
He held out his hand to the squire, but without looking at him, and then went on up the hill. I stayed a moment behind. The squire looked regularly .
 
"Your father is so peppery," he said, "so very peppery."
 
"Well, I don't understand what you mean," said I, but not in to his last remark. "Why isn't the thing a good speculation?"
 
"Oh, my dear young lady, it's very difficult to tell what things are going to turn out to be good and what not," answered he. "At all events, I'm afraid you and I would not be able to tell."
 
It was very polite of him no doubt to put it like that, but I did not like it: it was like making fun of me, for of course no one had said that I should be able to tell.
 
"I understood that you thought a great deal of Mr. Harrod's judgment," said I, coldly.
 
"So I do, so I do," repeated the squire, eagerly. "I believe it to be most sound."
 
"Well, anyhow, father won't have it much longer, sound or unsound, unless things take a different turn," continued I, with a grim sense of satisfaction in hurting the squire for having hurt Harrod's case with father.
 
"Why, what's up?" asked he.
 
"They have had a quarrel," explained I, carelessly. "Mr. Harrod wanted father to reduce the men's wages, and to make them work as long hours as they do for the other farmers hereabouts, and of course father wasn't going to do that, because he thinks it unjust."
 
"I knew it would come—bound to come," muttered the squire beneath his breath.
 
"And then he wanted him to buy mowing-machines for the haymaking," continued I, "and you know what father thinks of machines. So he refused, and then Mr. Harrod said that if he couldn't manage the farm his own way he must leave."
 
"Dear! dear!" sighed good Mr. Broderick. And dear me, how little I realized at the time all that it meant, his taking our affairs to heart as he did! "This must be set straight."
 
"I tried my best," concluded I. "It's no good talking to father; but Mr. Harrod promised me that he would take back his word about leaving if father asked him to."
 
The squire looked at me sharply. "Harrod promised you that?" he asked.
 
"Yes," repeated I, looking at him simply, "he promised me that."
 
The squire said no more, but his brow was knit as he turned away from me.
 
"I'll go and see Harrod,&qu............