“He! he!”

“I don’t know what you are laughing at; and then, says I, it is his own house, after all, so I said, ’If I am wrong, and you don’t mean to undermine my brother, take my hand;’ and I gave it him.”

“And be refused it?”

“No, Susan!”

“Well, then—­”

“But, Susan,” said William, solemnly, “his hand lay in mine like a stone.”

“Really, now!”

“A lump of ice would be as near the mark.”

“Well! is that the reason you promised me?” William nodded.

“William, you are a fool.”

“Oh I am a fool now?”

“You go and insult a man, your superior in every respect, and the very next moment he is to give you his hand as warmly as to a friend, and an equal; you really are too foolish to go without a keeper, and if it was in any man’s power to set me against poor George altogether you have gone the way to do it this twelve months past;” and Susan closed the conference abruptly.

It was William’s fate to rivet Meadows’ influence by every blow he aimed at it.  For all that the prudent Meadows thought it worth his while to rid himself of this honest and determined foe, and he had already taken steps.  He had discovered that this last month William Fielding, returning from market, had been seen more than once to stop and chat at one Mrs. Holiday’s, a retired small tradeswoman in Farnborough.  Now Mrs. Holiday was an old acquaintance of Meadows’ and had given him sugar-plums thirty years ago.  It suited his purpose to remember all of a sudden these old sugar-plums, and that Mrs. Holiday had lately told him she wanted to get out of the town and end her days upon turf.

There was a cottage, paddock and garden for sale within a hundred yards of “The Grove.”  Meadows bought them a good bargain, and offered them to the widow at a very moderate rent.

The widow was charmed.  “Why, we can keep a cow, Mr. Meadows.”

“Well, there is grass enough.”

The widow took the cottage with enthusiasm.

Mrs. Holiday had a daughter, a handsome—­a downright handsome girl, and a good girl into the bargain.

Meadows had said to himself:  “It is not the old woman Will Fielding goes there for.  Well, she will want some one to teach her how to farm that half acre of grass, and buy the cow and milk her.  Friendly offices—­chat coming and going—­come in, Mr. Fielding, and taste your cow’s cream!—­and, when he has got a lass of his own, his eye won’t be forever on mine.”

William’s letter to George went to the post-office, and from the post-office to a little pile of intercepted letters in Meadows’ desk.

CHAPTER LXXIX.