All very well, however, to talk of running the Squire’s estate!  What was to be done with the Squire?

Take the codicil business.  First thing that morning he had sent her to that very drawer to look for something, and there lay the precious document—­unsigned and unwitnessed—­for any one to see.  He made no comment, nor of course did she.  He would probably forget it till the date of his son’s marriage was announced, and then complete it in a hurry.

Take the farms and the park.  As to the farms there were two summonses now pending against him with regard to ’farms in hand’—­Holme Wood and another—­besides the action in the case of the three incompetent men, Gregson at their head, who were being turned out.  With regard to ploughing up the park, all his attempts so far to put legal difficulties in the way of the County Committee had been quite futile.  The steam plough was coming in a week.  Meanwhile the gates were to be locked, and two old park-keepers, who were dithering in their shoes, had been told to defend them.

At bottom, Elizabeth was tolerably convinced that the Squire would not land himself in gaol, cut off from his books and his bronzes, and reduced to the company of people who had never heard of Pausanias.  But she was alarmed lest he should ‘try it on’ a little too far, in these days when the needs of war and the revolutionary currents abroad make the setting down of squires especially agreeable to the plebeians who sit on juries or county committees.  Of course he must—­he certainly would—­climb down.

But somebody would have to go through the process of persuading him!  That was due to his silly dignity!  She supposed that somebody would be herself.  How absurd!  She, who had just been six weeks on the scene!  But neither of the married daughters had the smallest influence with him; Sir Henry Chicksands had been sent about his business; Major Mannering was out of favour, and Desmond and Pamela were but babes.

Then a recollection flashed across the contriving mind of Elizabeth which brought a decided flush to her fair skin—­a flush which was half amusement, half wrath.  That morning a rather curious incident had happened.  After her talk with Major Mannering, and because the morning was fine and the Squire was away, she had dragged a small table out into the garden, in front of the library, and set to work there on a part of the new catalogue of the collections, which she and Mr. Levasseur were making.  She did not, however, like Mr. Levasseur.  Something in her, indeed, disapproved of him strongly.  She had already managed to dislodge him a good deal from his former intimacy with the Squire.  Luckily she was a much better scholar than he, though she admitted that his artistic judgment was worth having.

As a shelter from a rather cold north wind, she was sitting in full sun under the protection of a yew hedge of ancient growth, which ran out at right angles to the library, and made one side of a quadrangular rose-garden, planted by Mrs. Mannering long ago, and now, like everything else, in confusion and neglect.