‘They will be the same as here.’
‘We wouldn’t want more than Master Crawshay gives.’
‘When can you get the hands together?’
‘In a day or two. But you haven’t told me where the place is, and I would have to know how much there is to cut.’
‘Now you are to remember that it is I who am engaging you, Caleb, although the place is not mine; and I want you to get people who will consent to do without beer until after work.’
‘You mean Ringsford,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’m afeared’——
There she stopped him by laying her hand on his shoulder and saying with a bright smile: ‘I know you don’t take beer yourself, and you know how much the others will gain by dropping it. I want you to get this work done, Caleb; and there is somebody else who will be as much pleased with you for doing it as I shall be. Come now, shall I tell her that you refuse to be near her, or that you are glad of the chance?’
Caleb hung his head and consented. He knew that she spoke of Pansy.
CHAPTER XIII.—THE CARES OF STATE.
The ladies of the Manor were in the element which delighted them most when preparing for the dinner and the ‘little dance’ which were to express the agony they experienced at the departure of their brother for a distant land. But the truth was that they did not think of the parting at all: their whole minds were occupied with the festival itself and with the ambition to make it the most brilliant that had ever been known at Ringsford.