The listeners to this dialogue betrayed approval of the young man’s demeanour.  Constance Bride, who had looked very grave indeed, allowed her features to relax; Mrs. Gallantry smiled a smile of conciliation, and her husband drew a sigh as if supremely edified.

Lady Ogram glanced at her secretary.

“Miss Bride, let him know my ‘excellent reasons,’ will you?”

“For a long time,” began Constance, in clear, balanced tones, “the village of Shawe has been anything but prosperous.  It was agricultural, of course, and farming about here isn’t what is used to be; there’s a great deal of grass and not much tillage.  The folk had to look abroad for a living; several of the cottages stood empty; the families that remained were being demoralised by poverty; they wouldn’t take the work that offered in the fields, and preferred to scrape up a living in the streets of Hollingford, if they didn’t try their hand at a little burglary and so on.  Lady Ogram saw what was going on, and thought it over, and hit upon the idea of the paper-mill.  Of course most of the Shawe cottagers were no good for such employment, but some of the young people got taken on, and there was work in prospect for children growing up, and in any case, the character of the village was saved.  Decent families came to the deserted houses, and things in general looked up.”

“Extremely interesting,” murmured Mr. Gallantry, as though he heard all this for the first time, and was deeply impressed by it.

“Very interesting indeed,” said Lashmar, with his frankest air.  “I hope I may be allowed to go over the mill; I should like nothing better.”

“You shall go over it as often as you like,” said Lady Ogram, with a grin.  “But Miss Bride has more to tell you.”

Constance looked inquiringly.

“Statistics?” she asked, when Lady Ogram paid no heed to her look.

“Don’t be stupid.  Tell him what I think about villages altogether.”

“Yes, I should very much like to hear that,” said Dyce, whose confidence was gaining ground.

“Lady Ogram doesn’t like the draining of the country population into towns; she thinks it a harmful movement, with bad results on social and political life, on national life from every point of view This seems to her to be the great question of the day.  How to keep up village life?—­in face of the fact that English agriculture seems to be doomed.  At Shawe, as Lady Ogram thinks, and we all do, a step has been taken in the right direction.  Lots of the young people who are now working here in wholesome surroundings would by this time have been lost in the slums of London or Liverpool or Birmingham.  Of course, as a mill-owner, she has made sacrifices; she hasn’t gone about the business with only immediate profit in view; children and girls have been taught what they wouldn’t have learnt but for Lady Ogram’s kindness.”

“Admirable!” murmured Mr. Gallantry.  “True philanthropy, and true patriotism!”