“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Pratt,” she said, as they shook hands. “I have not had an opportunity of congratulating you upon your access to fortune.”
“Very good of you, I’m sure,” Jacob murmured.
“We,” Mrs. Bultiwell continued, “are progressing, as you perceive, in the opposite direction. I suppose it is an idea of mine, but I feel all the time as though I were living in a sort of glorified almshouse.”
“It must seem very small to you after the Manor,” Jacob replied politely, “but the feeling you have spoken of is entirely misplaced. The Estate is conducted as a business enterprise, and will, without doubt, show a profit.”
“You are, I believe,” Mrs. Bultiwell said, “connected with the Estate?”
Jacob admitted the fact. Sybil, who had recommenced her watering, drew a little closer.
“There are a few things,” Mrs. Bultiwell observed, “to which I think the attention of the manager should be drawn. In the first place, the garden. It all requires digging up.”
“Surely that is a matter for the tenants,” Sybil intervened.
“Nothing of the sort,” Jacob pronounced. “It is a very careless omission on the part of the owners. I will give orders concerning it to-morrow.”