"But Sir Walter doesn't want to sell, does he?"

"We can find out from his bailiff, sir, but"--with cold
contempt--"I think that trained nurse is just comin' up from her
dinner, so 'm afraid we'll 'ave to ask you, sir ... Now, Master
George--Ai-ie! Wake a litty minute, lammie!"

A few months later the three of them were down at the brook in
the Gale Anstey woods to consider the rebuilding of a footbridge
carried away by spring floods. George Lashmar Chapin wanted all
the bluebells on God's earth that day to eat, and--Sophie adored
him in a voice like to the cooing of a dove; so business was
delayed.

"Here's the place," said his father at last among the water
forget-me-nots. "But where the deuce are the larch-poles, Cloke?
I told you to have them down here ready."

"We'll get 'em down if f you say so," Cloke answered, with a
thrust of the underlip they both knew.

"But I did say so. What on earth have you brought that timber-tug
here for? We aren't building a railway bridge. Why, in America,
half-a-dozen two-by-four bits would be ample."

"I don't know nothin' about that," said Cloke.

"An' I've nothin' to say against larch--IF you want to make a
temp'ry job of it. I ain't 'ere to tell you what isn't so, sir;