it its equal for advantages in England? The estate had always been a fine one; it only needed a mansion-house.

And the village, or the town, as it had grown to be, was so conveniently near; and was within an hour of London by train; and it had two daily posts and a telegraph office; a railway station, livery stables, and nufsery gardens.

It was no wonder that Mr Smith should think of building the house on the Hill; but having done so, they were unreasonably ill-pleased that he should wish to come and live in it.

People said he had lived abroad. Well, why could he not have gone on living there? Others would have made the property as good a speculation for themselves, and a deal better for them as had lived there before.

One thing, however, told in favour of the new-comer. He was rich. He had not met their expectations in any other way, but he had not failed in this. He really and truly was rich. His fortune was there. It had not melted, as money usually does, when too curiously pried into.

The amount, indeed, had been difficult to settle. At first it was thirty, but it passed through the different gradations of twenty-five, and twenty, to ten thousand a-year.

His servants deponed to its being ten. Several of them had heard Mr Smith say so.

Upon investigation, it proved to have been, not Mr Smith who said so, but his lawyer. The lawyer's phrase was, "A man like you with ten thousand a-year." And this, of course, as lawyer's evidence, was even more conclusive than if it had been given by their master himself.

The money was therefore secure, and they must make what they could out of it. It at least had not cheated them. They bowed low to the fortune. Although it had been reported at thirty, it was held to have stood the test well, when proved to be ten.

CHAPTER II.

WHO WAS TO BE THE FIRST?

THE next point was, who was to call on Mr Smith? Public expectation pointed first to the rector. But the rector, between his sore throats, his daily services, and his confidence that the new-comer would prove an orthodox parishioner, since he had cushioned and carpeted a church pew for his own particular use, was slow to fulfil the requirements of society in the present instance.

Mr Grey was a slow, but by no means a sure man to trust to. On ordinary occasions nothing else was expected from him. But then this was not quite an ordinary case. An immense amount of curiosity, conjecture, and anticipatory excitement had already been spent on the new proprietor, and it would be hard if all this outlay were to yield no return.

The sickle was therefore respectfully put into the rector's hand, and he was dumbly requested to lead the way and reap the first-fruits.

For a while he stood still with the sickle in the hand. The house on the Hill was a noble building. When he saw it first beginning to rise, a little of the parish ferment had worked itself even into his preoccupied bosom. He felt a seething of surmise as to its owner, and a bubble of anxiety lest he should prove schismatic.

But Mr Smith spoilt all.

Before he himself appeared, the church pew was applied for; and when the furniture for the house came down, the carpet and cushions for the pew came down with it.

Mr Grey felt secure, and turned him over to the curate. The curate was finishing his fortnight in Wales, and to wait for him was impossible.

The eyes of the population were therefore turned to the doctor, and if Mrs Hunt had had her way, they would have been speedily gratified.

But Mrs Hunt, who had her way, if report spoke truly, on a great many points where perhaps it might have been as well if she had not, knew that there were parts of her

dominion into which even the sovereign was sometimes refused admittance. She thought, she fancied this would be the case in the present instance; but she was brave, and she determined to risk it.

At once the doctor showed his bristles. "Call on Mr Smith, Polly? Not I. No one has called yet." "It is so soon," suggested she. "Soon? Of course it is. hasn't been here two days. until some reasonable time alone. March up there to-day? No, no, you'll not catch Robert Hunt making such a fool of himself."

Ridiculously soon? The man Until I have met him out, or has elapsed, I shall let him

"Oh dear, doctor, where's the fool? You ought to call as the doctor, if not as a neighbour. Think if that Barton should get him!"

The doctor turned round savagely.

"Call as the doctor? I'd sooner call as the

What

do you mean by such nonsense ?" cried he, pulling up with a choke. "Haven't I told you times without number that I'm not going to tout for business like a railway porter, or a cabman? If I want Mr Smith I shall call as a neighbour; if he doesn't like me as a neighbour, he needn't return it."

"I daresay he'll be among all the county people?" hinted she.

"I daresay he'll be nothing of the sort."

"Well, I saw him speaking to Lady Sauffrenden yesterday, at all events."

66

Hang Lady Sauffrenden!"

"Never mind Lady Sauffrenden, doctor; the point is Mr Smith."

"What do you want with Mr Smith ?"

Only to be neighbourly, I'm sure, and-have him here sometimes, you know. With neither wife, nor sister, nor any one belonging to him, he must be often dull of an evening, and would like to come down now and then, I daresay. The girls would amuse him."

"So that's what you're after, Polly. Why, the man's as old as I am."

Having recovered from the first shock of this suspicion herself, it behoved her, if she could not dissipate the suspicion, at least to soften the shock, to her husband.

"That's not so old either, Robert. He's a fine-looking man, and a bachelor's always younger than other men." "I don't see that. I think I'm as young-looking as Smith any day. Stout, apoplectic-"

"Oh dear, doctor, don't go and speak against him—you might just as well give him a chance. What's a few years more or less? And they do say he has twenty thousand a-year."

66

'No, Polly, it's ten. It has come down to ten since he arrived. However, ten would be enough for me. Humph!" 66 So you see you might just as well call as other people," nodded his wife knowingly.

"If I call now, ma'am, can't you see that it means a doctor's call-a village doctor in search of patients? Do you think that that's a likely way to bring Mr Smith forward as a suitor for your daughter?" cried he, with no subterfuge of language. "I know the world a little better than you do, Mrs Hunt; it's only those who have something to get by it who rush at every new man. I'll take care Smith doesn't go past me, but I don't mean him to find that out. I'm not going to be known as the village doctor to anybody. What is the use of your fine connections if that is the only footing we have to stand upon? If I had not taken the greatest care in the world we should never have been where we are now. It is not everybody in our position who has the footing we have. Scarcely a house in the neighbourhood we don't go to, once a-year at least. I mean to call on this Mr Smith, of course; but I shall wait a little, till some of the other people have been. Then I call as a neighbour, among the other neighbours. may try to hook him, if you can."

"I'm afraid the girls will laugh at him." "What is there to laugh at?"

Then you

"I'm sure I don't know, but they are always quizzing people, as they call it. They'll say he's a regular old quiz. "They'll be great fools, then."

"It's the Tolleton girls that set them on."

"The Tolleton girls would be glad to catch Mr Smith for one of themselves."

Old

"That they would, Robert! That's what I say. Tolleton will be going and calling there to-day-see if he doesn't!"dur

"I met him coming out of the gate just now," said the doctor, with a grin.

"There now! Didn't I tell you? They'll have asked him to dinner as sure as eggs are eggs, and he'll be there all day long!"

"You needn't put yourself about, for they haven't done it yet, Polly. Mrs Tolleton, the old lady, is just dead, and he was telling me how they couldn't have any company just now on that account, but he had been up to call. However, Smith was out."

"As if they couldn't have waited to call, and his own mother barely buried!" cried Mrs Hunt. "The way some people will rush at everybody they think a catch, in the very face of decency!"

"It is just what you wanted me to do."

No, indeed, doctor; there's all the difference in the world. Your mother has been dead these twenty years; there's no reason in the world why you shouldn't call at

"There's no reason why I should, and that's more to the purpose. Who thinks anything of Tolleton, just because he's always thrusting his card upon everybody? And if I did the same they would think still less of me. The Tolletons are a cut above us. You be patient, Polly, and I'll do the right thing at the right time."

Mrs Hunt drummed her feet upon the floor. It was hard to be patient when a few minutes before she had seemed so nearly victorious. When, too, he had not been blind to her wishes, but had understood and plainly spoken them out, yet had not, as many an unreasonable husband would have done, forbidden her to carry them into effect.

The Tolletons, if they had an end in view, generally managed to attain it, in spite of deaths and other inconveniences. Mr Smith would be there at dinner ere long, -would perhaps be intimate at Freelands before the Hunts even knew him.

The girls might laugh at Mr Smith and call him an old quiz, as she had predicted, but that was no reason why, as the doctor had rejoined, they would not be glad enough to catch him if they could.

The worst of it was, that Maria and Clare, who always did whatever the Tolleton girls did, would laugh with them