harm should come, for the next time he was alone with Hetty, he would explain to her that she must not think seriously of him or of what had passed.  It was necessary to Arthur, you perceive, to be satisfied with himself.  Uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions for the future, which can be formed so rapidly that he had time to be uncomfortable and to become easy again before Mr. Poyser’s slow speech was finished, and when it was time for him to speak he was quite light-hearted.

“I thank you all, my good friends and neighbours,” Arthur said, “for the good opinion of me, and the kind feelings towards me which Mr. Poyser has been expressing on your behalf and on his own, and it will always be my heartiest wish to deserve them.  In the course of things we may expect that, if I live, I shall one day or other be your landlord; indeed, it is on the ground of that expectation that my grandfather has wished me to celebrate this day and to come among you now; and I look forward to this position, not merely as one of power and pleasure for myself, but as a means of benefiting my neighbours.  It hardly becomes so young a man as I am to talk much about farming to you, who are most of you so much older, and are men of experience; still, I have interested myself a good deal in such matters, and learned as much about them as my opportunities have allowed; and when the course of events shall place the estate in my hands, it will be my first desire to afford my tenants all the encouragement a landlord can give them, in improving their land and trying to bring about a better practice of husbandry.  It will be my wish to be looked on by all my deserving tenants as their best friend, and nothing would make me so happy as to be able to respect every man on the estate, and to be respected by him in return.  It is not my place at present to enter into particulars; I only meet your good hopes concerning me by telling you that my own hopes correspond to them—­that what you expect from me I desire to fulfil; and I am quite of Mr. Poyser’s opinion, that when a man has said what he means, he had better stop.  But the pleasure I feel in having my own health drunk by you would not be perfect if we did not drink the health of my grandfather, who has filled the place of both parents to me.  I will say no more, until you have joined me in drinking his health on a day when he has wished me to appear among you as the future representative of his name and family.”

Perhaps there was no one present except Mr. Irwine who thoroughly understood and approved Arthur’s graceful mode of proposing his grandfather’s health.  The farmers thought the young squire knew well enough that they hated the old squire, and Mrs. Poyser said, “he’d better not ha’ stirred a kettle o’ sour broth.”  The bucolic mind does not readily apprehend the refinements of good taste.  But the toast could not be rejected and when it had been drunk, Arthur said, “I thank you, both for my grandfather and myself; and now there