The next morning the sun shone, and the world was as gay as ever. Father declared himself well and ; complained of no pain and betrayed no weakness, was merry at the breakfast-table over a letter of Frank Forrester's, and withdrew with it as usual to his study, where he spent more and more time opposite the portrait of Camille Lambert, and left farm matters more and more to his bailiff.  
For me the sun shone the more brightly because of a short, ten minutes with Trayton Harrod, in which we said nothing in particular, but that chased away the tiny shadow of disappointment that had crossed the horizon of my sweet, dawning experience, and it—disgraced and ashamed—into oblivion.
 
It was a very short ten minutes. Miss Farnham and the vicar's wife had been to call, and the Hoad girls had come to ask us to go to a ball at the town-hall. "Oh, do come," they had said, "and bring the bailiff;" and my dignity had flamed into my cheek, and I had been grateful to mother for refusing for us, and even to old Miss Farnham for declaring that we were more sensible than most girls, and weren't always on the watch for new occasions to pinch in our waists. Miss Farnham, I , had declared afterwards that it was only a to catch father.
 
It was after the guests had left, and while we were waiting for mother to get her on for a drive, that Harrod and I got those short ten minutes to ourselves.
 
Joyce had gone to Guestling to lunch with some friends, and mother had proposed to Harrod to drive us over to fetch her, so that at the same time she might look at a cow which he had found for her there for sale.
 
We set , Harrod driving mother in the cart with the steady old black horse, and I riding Marigold alongside.
 
I saw as soon as we set out that he was just a little shade out of spirits. It troubled me at first, but I soon guessed, or thought I guessed, what it was about.
 
"Wasn't that Mr. Hoad I saw up atop of the hill with you and Laban?" asked mother, just after we had set out.
 
Harrod nodded.
 
"What does the man want with farming?" asked mother. "I shouldn't have thought he was a wiseacre on such-like."
 
Harrod his shoulders; he evidently didn't intend to commit himself.
 
"Mr. Hoad wouldn't wait to hear if other folk thought him a wiseacre before he'd think he had a right to interfere," laughed I. "Those smart daughters of his came Joyce and me to a ball just now."
 
"You're not going?" asked Harrod, quickly.
 
"No, no," answered mother. "I don't hold with that kind of amusement for young folk. There's too many strangers."
 
"Why don't you want us to go?" asked I, softly.
 
He didn't reply; he whipped up the horse a little instead.
 
"Miss Farnham declared our going would have been made use of to try and draw father into the election against his will," said I. "But she's always got some queer notion in her head."
 
"Well, upon my word, I don't believe there's much these electioneering chaps would stick at," declared Harrod, contemptuously. "I declare I believe they'd step into a man's house and get his own chairs and tables to go against him if they could."
 
Mother laughed, but Harrod did not laugh.
 
"And if they can't have their way, there's nothing they wouldn't do to spite a fellow," added he.
 
"Why, what has Mr. Hoad been doing to spite you?" asked mother.
 
"Nothing, ma'am, nothing at all," declared the bailiff. "There's nothing he could do to spite me, for I don't set enough store by him; and I should doubt if there's any would be led far by the words of a man that shows himself such a time-server."
 
He so bitterly that I looked at him in sheer .
 
"I thought Mr. Hoad seemed to have taken quite a fancy to you last night," said mother.
 
Harrod laughed harshly.
 
"Yes," he said; and then he added, , "There's some folk's seemings that aren't to be trusted. They depend upon what they can get."
 
"Good gracious!" said mother. "Whatever could Mr. Hoad want to get of you?"
 
"Excuse me, ma'am, I don't know that he wanted to get anything," declared Harrod, evidently feeling that he had gone too far. "I know no ill of the man. I don't like him—that's all."
 
Mother was silent, but I said, boldly, "No more do I."
 
And there talk on the subject ended. It was not until many a long day afterwards that I knew that Hoad—moved, I suppose, by Harrod's argument against father on the previous evening—had tried to persuade him to help in some sort against his employer in the coming political struggle. He little knew the man with whom he had to deal, and that no remarks which spite might induce him to make to father upon his farming capacities would have any influence upon father's bailiff. Only I was glad I had agreed with him in not Mr. Hoad. It got me a reproving look from mother, but it got me a little smile from him, which in the state of my feelings added one little grain more to the growing sum of my unconfessed happiness.
 
It was a long way to Guestling. Away past "The Elms" and its hop-gardens, and many other hop-gardens again, where the bines were growing tall and rich with their pale green clusters; away between blackberry and bryony hedges that the stately foxglove , between banks white with ; away onto the breast of the breezy downs, where the hills were blue for a border, and of pines grew unexpectedly by the road-side.
 
The west became a sea of flame beyond the vastness of that , just as it had been almost every evening through that glorious summer, and set a line of blood-red upon the horizon for miles around, firing of cloud that floated upon lakes of tender green, and other masses with of gold that were as the edges of burning to their softness.
 
Mother was almost afraid of it. She declared that she had never seen a sunset that swallowed up half the heavens like that, and she wondered what it ; for even after we had turned and left the west behind us the clouds that sailed the blue were red with it still.
 
When we got near to Guestling we were overtaken by Broderick on his roan cob. I think he had intended to ride farther but he seemed so delighted to find mother out-of-doors that he could not detach himself from our party.
 
"Why, Mrs. Maliphant," I remember his saying with that half-respectful, half-affectionate air of familiarity that he always used to our mother, "if you knew how becoming that white bonnet is you would put it on oftener. It's quite a treat to see you out driving."
 
Mother declared that only business had brought her out now; and I remember how the squire told her she would never find a new friend to take the place of an old one, not if Harrod were to find her a cow with twice the good points of poor old Betsey. And while Mr. Broderick was paying sweet compliments to mother, Harrod and I exchanged a few more of those commonplace words, the memory of which made me merry, even when presently I was obliged to drop behind and ride alongside of the squire.
 
I had something to say to him, and as it related to the bailiff, I was not to drop behind. The night before he had made light of those schemes and improvements on the farm of which I was beginning to be so proud, and I had not thought it fair of him to try and set his own prot�g� in a poor light before father. I meant to tell him so, and this was the opportunity.
 
"Mr. Broderick," said I, driving boldly into my subject, "why did you talk last night as if things were going badly on the farm? You told me a while ago that all the farm wanted was a younger head and heart upon it—somebody more ambitious to work for it. Yet now one would almost fancy you mistrusted the very man you recommended, and wanted to make father mistrust him."
 
I saw the squire start and look at me—look at me in a sharp, inquiring sort of way.
 
"I did not intend to give that impression," he said.
 
"Well, then, you did," said I, wisely shaking my head. "Any one could have seen it. You were quite cool about the water scheme. Why, father took his part against you."
 
"I think you exaggerate, Miss Margaret," murmured he.
 
"Oh no, I don't," I insisted. "And if I am rude, I beg your pardon; but I think it a pity you should all the work I have been doing. Besides," added I, in a lower voice, "it's not fair. You said you were 'afraid' he was spending too much money, and you 'hoped' he would make a fortune over the . It didn't sound as if you believed it would be so."
 
"Well, so I do hope a fortune will be made," smiled he.
 
"Ah, but you said it as if it might have been quite the contrary," insisted I.
 
"Did I?" repeated he, .
 
"Yes," declared I. "If you don't think Mr. Harrod manages well, you should tell him so; you are his friend."
 
The squire was silent, silent.
 
"Ah, who can tell what is good management in hops?" sighed he at last. "The most thing that a man can touch. All chance. Twelve hours' storm, a few scalding hot days, and a few night-mists at the wrong moment, may ruin the most brilliant hopes of weeks. I have seen fortunes lost over hops. A field that will bring forth hundreds one year will scarcely pay for the picking the next. No man ought to touch hops who has not plenty of money at his back."
 
"Do you think father knows that hops are such a tremendous risk?" I asked.
 
"Oh, of course he must know it," answered the squire.
 
And there he stopped short. I did not choose to ask any more. It seemed like mistrusting father to ask questions about his affairs. But I wondered whether he was a man who had "plenty of money at his back."
 
"I think Harrod is a safe fellow, and a clever fellow," added the squire. "A cool-headed, hard-headed sort of chap, who ought not to be over-sanguine though he is young."
 
The words were not enthusiastic, they were said rather as a duty—they offended me.
 
"Oh, I am sure you would not have recommended him to father unless you had had a high opinion of him," said I, . "And I am glad to say that father has a high opinion of him himself, and always follows his advice. I do not suppose that anything that any one said would prejudice father against Mr. Harrod now. In fact we all have the highest opinion of him."
 
With that I touched Marigold with the whip and sent her forward to the cart. Mother started, and reproved me sharply; but at that moment we drew up at the farm gates, and she turned round to beg the squire would spare her a few minutes to give his opinion also upon the purchase. Harrod looked round, and I was angry, for she ha............