"I say, Wrexham, what is that funny little windmill for at the foot of the hill?" She knew well enough what it was for before she asked, but she also knew that Lord Wrexham would delight in explaining it.
His face brightened at once. "It is a new arrangement for pumping water up to the house. You see, Isabel, we have hitherto drunk the water from a well in the courtyard, which did quite nicely for us. But when I found that you were coming to live at Vernacre I had it analyzed; and discovered that, although there was nothing much amiss with it, it was not quite so pure as the water from a spring at the foot of that hill. So, by means of a most ingenious arrangement, the wind pumps all the drinking water for the house up from that one spring, which I have proved is the purest water on the estate."
"How good you are to me, my dear old boy!"
"I want you to have the best of everything, and I mean to give it you as far as I can. But I should like to explain the mechanism of this arrangement to you, Isabel. It is a most clever contrivance, I think, and repays examination."
So Isabel listened patiently while her lover expounded to her how the wind turned the wheel which pumped the water up to the house, so that much work was accomplished by means of a very little outlay.
"You are so awfully clever at things of this kind," she said, as they strolled homewards, "I am sure you have literally more brains in your little finger than most men have in their stupid heads."
"I have not many brains anywhere, I am afraid; but as I am always thinking about you and wondering what I can do for your comfort and pleasure, I should indeed be a poor fool if I did not hit upon the right thing sometimes." And Lord Wrexham sighed.
"You very often hit upon the right thing. I don't think you have any idea what a comfort you are to me, Wrexham. When my head and heart are tired out they always come back to you, as if you were a patent soothing syrup or a provision for old age. I call you my 'rest cure'."
"I am thankful if I bring you any happiness, my child, in return for the abundant measure you have bestowed upon me in promising to be my wife; yet I am but a dull companion for such a brilliant young creature as yourself. However, when you come to Vernacre for good, we will always have the house full of young people, so that you will never have time to be bored by your slow old coach of a husband."
"You are not a slow old coach," cried Isabel indignantly, "you are the best and dearest man in the whole world!"