And now Tom Armstrong of Kelvick, a man of the people, who has risen from the lowest rung of the social ladder, is master of Nutsgrove. And the dark-eyed, blue-blooded Lefroys stand, some two months after his installation, leaning against a five-barred gate in an upland meadow, gazing mournfully, and, oh! how bitterly down on the beloved home they have lost forever! "Three hundred years," repeats Robert, with a dreary laugh. "Well, at any rate, it will take some time to wash the stains of our tenancy out of the old house, to remove all traces of our footsteps from the well-worn paths! By Jove, the wretched snob is at work already! Yes, look at his people hacking away at the flower-beds, ripping up the avenue, hammering away at the venerable walls! It's--it's enough to make one's blood boil in one's veins! He might at least have had the decency to wait until we had gone. I'd like to kick him from here to Kelvick." "I don't think he'd let you, Bob," says matter-of-fact Hal. "He's a bigger man than you." "Yes, but a plowman can't fight a gentleman; they're out of it in the first round. Look at the way I polished off the butcher's boy the day he insulted you--and he's twice my weight. I shouldn't be afraid to tackle Armstrong if I only had the chance, and souse him in one of his vile vitriol-tanks, too. That would stop his hacking and hammering until I was at least out of hearing." "But, Bob," interposed Lottie, awed by her brother's lordly threats, "you're mistaken. That man on the ladder by the west wall is not hammering or hacking anything; he's only trying to clean the big lobby window outside the housekeeper's room, which, I heard Aunt Jo say one day, hasn't been cleaned since the year poor mamma died, when I was a wee baby. It's so hard to reach, and doesn't open; and--and, Bob, you can hardly blame Mr. Armstrong for weeding those beds, for there were more dandelions and nettles in them last year than stocks or mignonette." "You mark my words," continues Robert, with lowering impressiveness, heedless of his sister's explanation; "should any of us Lefroys stand in this meadow, say, this time five years, we shall not recognize the face of our old home. All its beloved landmarks will be swept away; the flickering foliage of the grove will have disappeared to make way for stunted shrubs, starveling pines, and prim Portuguese laurels: the ivied walls, the mossy stonework, the straggling wealth of creeper, will have been carted away to display the gaudy rawness of modern landscape-gardening; the little river gurgling through the tangled fern and scented thorn-bushes will be treated like the canal of a people's park; the whole place will reek of vitriol, of chemical manures and commercial improvements. So say good-by to Nutsgrove while you may, for you will never see it again--never again!" "Oh, Robert, Robert, do you think it will be as bad as that?" cries Addie, turning her soft gray eyes to his wrathful face in wistful appeal.