"Taxed is it? You don't know these municipalities. If you had a little island in your name, no bigger than this room, they'd tax you for it, and make you pay school rate, and do statute labour beside, though there wasn't a school or a road within ten miles of it. For downright jewing and most unjustifiable extortion on non-residents, commend me to a township council. You'll be sold out by the sheriff of the county, sure as eggs, and the Grinstun man'll buy your property for the arrears of taxes."
"Whatever shall I do, Mr. Coristine?" asked the alarmed young lady; "I do not wish to lose my father's gift through negligence."
"You should have taken advice from the junior member of Tylor, Woodruff and White," replied the lawyer, with a peculiar smile; "but the Grinstun man has bagged your estate."
"Oh, do not say that, Mr Coristine. Tell me, what shall I do? And who is the man you mean?"
"The man I mean is the one that met you when you came here to dinner. He is going to quarry in your farm for grindstones, and make his fortune. But, as he wants yourself into the bargain, I imagine he can't get the land without you, so that somebody must have paid the taxes."
"Then it is the little wretch Marjorie told me of, the cruel creature who kicked a poor dog?"
"The very same; he is the Grinstun man. I've got a poem on him I'll read you some day."
"That will be delightful; I am very fond of good poetry."
"Wilks says it isn't good poetry; but any man that grovels over Wordsworth, with a tear in the old man's eye, is a poor judge."
"I admire Wordsworth, Mr. Coristine, and am afraid that you are not in earnest about poetry. To me it is like life, a very serious thing. But, tell me, do you think the land is safe?"