‘You’re a wonderful man, Mr Belton.’

’I wish you wouldn’t call me Mr Belton.  But of course you must do as you please about that.  If I can make him call me Will, I suppose you’ll call me so too.’

‘Oh, yes; then I will.’

’It don’t much matter what a person is called; does it!  Only one likes to be friendly with one’s friends.  I suppose you don’t like my calling you Clara.’

‘Now you’ve begun you had better go on.’

’I mean to.  I make it a rule never to go back in the world.  Your father is half sorry that he has agreed about the place; but I shan’t let him off now.  And I’ll tell you what.  In spite of what he says, I’ll have it as different as possible before this time next year.  ’Why, there’s lots of timber that ought to come out of the plantation; and there’s places where the roots want stubbing up horribly.  These things always pay for themselves if they are properly done.  Any good done in the world always pays.’  Clara often remembered those words afterwards when she was thinking of her cousin’s character.  Any good done in the world always pays!

‘But you mustn’t offend my father, even though it should do good,’ she said.

‘I understand,’ he answered.  ’I won’t tread on his toes.  Where do you get your milk and butter?’

‘We buy them.’

‘From Stovey, I suppose.’

‘Yes; from Mr Stovey.  It goes against the rent.’

’And it ought to go against the grain too living in the country and paying for milk!  I’ll tell you what I’ll do.  I’ll give you a cow.  It shall be a little present from me to you.’  He said nothing of the more important present which this would entail upon him in the matter of the grass for the cow; but she understood the nature of the arrangement, and was anxious to prevent it.

‘Oh, Mr Belton, I think we’d better not attempt that,’ she said.

’But we will attempt it.  I’ve pledged myself to do nothing to oppose your father; but I’ve made no such promise as to you.  We’ll have a cow before I’m many days older.  What a pretty place this is!  I do like these rocks so much, and it is such a comfort to be off the flat.’

‘It is pretty.’

’Very pretty.  You’ve no conception what an ugly place Plaistow is.  The land isn’t actual fen now, but it was once.  And it’s quite flat.  And there is a great dike, twenty feet wide, oozing through it just oozing, you know; and lots of little dikes, at right angles with the big one.  And the fields are all square.  And there are no hedges and hardly a tree to be seen in the place.

’What a picture you have drawn!  I should commit suicide if I lived there.’

‘Not if you had so much to do as I have.’

‘And what is the house like?’

’The house is good enough an old-fashioned manor-house, with high brick chimneys, and brick gables, tiled all over, and large square windows set in stone.  The house is good enough, only it stands in the middle of a farm-yard.  I said there were no trees, but there is an avenue.’