with light on its petals.  Now all these pleasant rambles were finished.  The mistress of Abbot’s Manor would certainly object to a wandering parson in her house and grounds.  Probably she was a very imperious, disagreeable young woman,—­full of the light scorn, lack of sentiment and cheap atheism common to the ‘smart’ lady of a decadent period, and if it were true that she had been for so many years in the charge of an American aunt with a ‘hundred millions,’ the chances were ten to one that she would be an exceedingly unpleasant neighbour.

He gave a short impatient sigh.

“Ah, well!  I only hope she will put a stop to the felling of the fine old trees in her domain,” he said half aloud,—­“If no one else in the village has the pluck to draw her attention to the depredations of Oliver Leach, I will.  But, so far as other matters go,—­my walks in the Manor woods are ended!  Yes, Nebbie!” and he gently patted the head of the faithful animal, who, with inborn sagacity instinctively guessing that his master was somewhat annoyed, was clambering with caressing forepaws against his knee.  “Our rambles by the big elms and silvery birches and under the beautiful tall pines are over, Nebbie! and we shouldn’t be human if we weren’t just a trifle sorry!  Sir Morton Pippitt is bad enough as a neighbour, but he’s a good three miles off at Badsworth Hall, thank Heaven!—­whereas Abbot’s Manor is but a quarter of an hour’s walk from this gate.  We’ve had pleasant times in the dear old-fashioned gardens, Nebbie, you and I, but it’s all over!  The mistress of the Manor is coming home,—­and I’m positively certain, Nebbie,—­yes, old boy!—­positively certain that we shall both detest her!”

III

When England’s great Queen, Victoria the Good; was still enjoying her first happy years of wedded life, and society, under her gentle sway, was less ostentatious and much more sincere in its code of ethics than it is nowadays, the village of St. Rest, together with the adjacent post-town of Riversford, enjoyed considerable importance in county chronicles.  Very great ‘county personages’ were daily to be seen comporting themselves quite simply among their own tenantry, and the Riversford Hunt Ball annually gathered together a veritable galaxy of ‘fair women and brave men’ who loved their ancestral homes better than all the dazzle and movement of town, and who possessed for the most part that ‘sweet content’ which gives strength to the body and elasticity to the mind.  There was then a natural gaiety and spontaneous cheerfulness in English country life that made such a life good for human happiness; and the jolly Squires who with their ‘dames’ kept open house and celebrated Harvest Home and Christmas Festival with all the buoyancy and vigour of a sane and healthful manhood undeteriorated by any sickly taint of morbid pessimism and indifferent inertia, were the beneficent rulers of a merrier rural population