The footman in the shabby livery had been a little wild in his statements, being rendered so by the admiring and excited state of his mind.  He dwelt upon the matter of her “looks,” and the way she lighted up the dingy dining-room, and so conversed that a man found himself listening and glancing when it was his business to be an unhearing, unseeing piece of mechanism.

Such simple records of servitors’ impressions were quite enough for Stornham village, and produced in it a sense of being roused a little from sleep to listen to distant and uncomprehended, but not unagreeable, sounds.

One morning Buttle, the carpenter, looked up as Kedgers had done, and saw standing on the threshold of his shop the tall young woman, who was a sensation and an event in herself.

“You are the master of this shop?” she asked.

Buttle came forward, touching his brow in hasty salute.

“Yes, my lady,” he answered.  “Joseph Buttle, your ladyship.”

“I am Miss Vanderpoel,” dismissing the suddenly bestowed title with easy directness.  “Are you busy?  I want to talk to you.”

No one had any reason to be “busy” at any time in Stornham village, no such luck; but Buttle did not smile as he replied that he was at liberty and placed himself at his visitor’s disposal.  The tall young lady came into the little shop, and took the chair respectfully offered to her.  Buttle saw her eyes sweep the place as if taking in its resources.

“I want to talk to you about some work which must be done at the Court,” she explained at once.  “I want to know how much can be done by workmen of the village.  How many men have you?”

“How many men had he?” Buttle wavered between gratification at its being supposed that he had “men” under him and grumpy depression because the illusion must be dispelled.

“There’s me and Sim Soames, miss,” he answered.  “No more, an’ no less.”

“Where can you get more?” asked Miss Vanderpoel.

It could not be denied that Buttle received a mental shock which verged in its suddenness on being almost a physical one.  The promptness and decision of such a query swept him off his feet.  That Sim Soames and himself should be an insufficient force to combat with such repairs as the Court could afford was an idea presenting an aspect of unheard-of novelty, but that methods as coolly radical as those this questioning implied, should be resorted to, was staggering.

“Me and Sim has always done what work was done,” he stammered.  “It hasn’t been much.”

Miss Vanderpoel neither assented to nor dissented from this last palpable truth.  She regarded Buttle with searching eyes.  She was wondering if any practical ability concealed itself behind his dullness.  If she gave him work, could he do it?  If she gave the whole village work, was it too far gone in its unspurred stodginess to be roused to carrying it out?

“There is a great deal to be done now,” she said.  “All that can be done in the village should be done here.  It seems to me that the villagers want work—­new work.  Do they?”