work; and, perhaps after all, she was not
sorry to be compelled to take the step she
was longing for. At any rate, Bessy came to
live with Miss Galindo in a very few weeks
from the time when Captain James set Miss
Galindo free to superintend her own domestic
economy again.

For a long time, I knew nothing about this
new inhabitant of Hanbury. My lady never
mentioned her in any way. This was in
accordance with Lady Ludlow's well-known
principles. She neither saw, nor heard, nor
was in any way cognisant of the existence of
those who had no legal right to exist at all. If
Miss Galindo had hoped to have an exception
made in Bessy's favour, she was mistaken.
My lady sent a note inviting Miss Galindo
herself to tea one evening about a month
after Bessy came; but Miss Galindo "had a
cold and could not come." The next time she
was invited, she "had an engagement at
home"—a step nearer to the absolute truth.
And the third time, she "had a young friend
staying with her whom she was unable to
leave." My lady accepted every excuse as
bona fide, and took no further notice. I
missed Miss Galindo very much; we all did;
for, in the days when she was clerk, she was
sure to come in and find the opportunity of
saying something amusing to some of us
before she went away. And I, as an invalid,
or perhaps from natural tendency, was
particularly fond of little bits of village gossip.
There was no Mr. Horner, he even had come
in now and then with formal, stately pieces
of intelligence, and there was no Miss Galindo
in these days. I missed her much. And so
did my lady, I am sure. Behind all her
quiet, sedate manner, I am certain her heart
ached sometimes for a few words from Miss
Galindo, who seemed to have absented
herself altogether from the Hall now Bessy was
come.

Captain James might be very sensible, and
all that; but not even my lady could call
him a substitute for the old familiar friends.
He was a thorough sailor, as sailors were in
those days—swore a good deal, drank a good
deal (without its ever affecting him in the
least), and was very prompt and kind-hearted
in all his actions. But he was not accustomed
to women, as my lady once said, and
would judge in all things for himself. My
lady had expected, I think, to find some one
who would take his notions on the management
of her estate from her ladyship's own
self; but he spoke as if he were responsible
for the good management of the whole, and
must, consequently, be allowed liberty of
action. He had been too long in command
over men at sea to like to be directed by a
woman in anything which he undertook, even
though that woman was my lady. I
suppose this was the common-sense my lady
spoke of; but when common-sense goes
against us, I don't think we value it quite so
much as we ought to do.

Lady Ludlow was proud of her personal
superintendence of her own estate. She
liked to tell us how her father used to take
her with him in his rides, and bid her
observe this and that, and on no account
to allow such and such things to be done.
But I have heard that the first time
she told all this to Captain James, he
told her point-blank that he had heard
from Mr. Smithson that the farms were much
neglected and the rents sadly behindhand,
and that he meant to set to in good earnest,
and study agriculture, and see how he could
remedy the state of things. My lady would,
I am sure, be very much surprised, but what
could she do? Here was the very man she
had chosen herself, setting to with all his
energy to conquer the defect of ignorance,
which was all that those who had presumed
to offer her ladyship advice had ever had to
say against him. Captain James read Arthur
Young's Tours in all his spare time, as long
as he was an invalid; and shook his head at
my lady's accounts as to how the land had
been cropped or left fallow from time
immemorial. Then he set to, and tried too many
new experiments at once. My lady looked
on in dignified silence; but all the farmers
and tenants were in an uproar, and prophesied
a hundred failures. Perhaps fifty did occur;
they were only half as many as Lady Ludlow
had feared; but they were twice as many,
four, eight times as many as the captain had
anticipated. His openly-expressed
disappointment made him popular again. The
rough country people could not have understood
silent and dignified regret at the failure
of his plans; but they sympathised with a
man who swore at his ill-success—
sympathised, even while they chuckled over his
discomfiture. Mr. Brooke, the retired tradesman,
did not cease blaming him for not succeeding,
and for swearing. "But what could
you expect from a sailor?" Mr. Brooke
asked, even in my lady's hearing; though he
might have known Captain James was my
lady's own personal choice, from the old
friendship Mr. Urian had always shown for
him. I think it was this speech of the
Birmingham baker's that made my lady determine
to stand by Captain James, and
encourage him to try again. For she would
not allow that her choice had been an unwise
one, at the bidding (as it were) of a Dissenting
tradesman; the only person in the
neighbourhood, too, who had flaunted about in
coloured clothes, when all the world was in
mourning for my lady's only son.

Captain James would have thrown the
agency up at once, if my lady had not felt
herself bound to justify the wisdom of her
choice, by urging him to stay. He was much
touched by her confidence in him, and swore
a great oath, that the next year he would
make the land such as it had never been
before for produce. It was not my lady's
way to repeat anything she had heard,