“If you have done, Caroline,” said Lady Penwether to Miss Penge, “I think we’ll go into the other room.”

That afternoon Sir George asked the Senator to accompany him for a walk.  Sir George was held to be responsible for the Senator’s presence, and was told by the ladies that he must do something with him.  The next day, which was Friday, would be occupied by the affairs of Scrobby and Goarly, and on the Saturday he was to return to town.  The two started about three with the object of walking round the park and the home farm—­the Senator intent on his duty of examining the ways of English life to the very bottom.  “I hope I did not say anything amiss about Miss Trefoil,” he remarked, as they passed through a shrubbery gate into the park.

“No; I think not”

“I thought your good lady looked as though she did not like the subject”

“I am not sure that Miss Trefoil is very popular with the ladies up there.”

“She’s a handsome young woman and clever, though, as I said before, given to melancholy, and sometimes fastidious.  When we were all here I thought that Lord Rufford admired her, and that poor Mr. Morton was a little jealous.”

“I wasn’t at Rufford then.  Here we get out of the park on to the home farm.  Rufford does it very well,—­very well indeed.”

“Looks after it altogether himself?”

“I cannot quite say that.  He has a land-bailiff who lives in the house there.”

“With a salary?”

“Oh yes; 120 pounds a year I think the man has:” 

“And that house?” asked the Senator.  “Why, the house and garden are worth 50 pounds a year.”

“I dare say they are.  Of course it costs money.  It’s near the park and had to be made ornamental.”

“And does it pay?”

“Well, no; I should think not.  In point of fact I know it does not.  He loses about the value of the ground.”

The Senator asked a great many more questions and then began his lecture.  “A man who goes into trade and loses by it, cannot be doing good to himself or to others.  You say, Sir George, that it is a model farm;—­but it’s a model of ruin.  If you want to teach a man any other business, you don’t specially select an example in which the proprietors are spending all their capital without any return.  And if you would not do this in shoemaking, why in farming?”

“The neighbours are able to see how work should be done.”

“Excuse me, Sir George, but it seems to me that they are enabled to see how work should not be done.  If his lordship would stick up over his gate a notice to the effect that everything seen there was to be avoided, he might do some service.  If he would publish his accounts half-yearly in the village newspaper—­”

“There isn’t a village newspaper.”