“I did not mean that; I am not sorry for having written and despatched my letter, I only regret that there should be any necessity for you to drive back to Palinsbridge to-night. But, at least, you will have something to eat before you start?” “It appears to me we ought not to break bread under your roof,” said his cousin; “but, considering we have had nothing since we left Hastings, ten hours since, except a glass of sherry and seltzer water at Palinsbridge, I think it would be carrying animosity farther than human nature could endure, to refuse your obliging though tardy offer.” “For my part, I shall be very glad to accept it,” declared Mr. Stewart; “worry always gives me an appetite; and I should not care to be dependent on the good offices of mine landlord at the Plough, for supper. His seltzer water was as hot as though drawn from one of the Geyser springs. And will you let some of your people tell the fellow, who brought us over, to give that poor devil of a horse of his a feed? Nice creature it is; trots about three miles an hour!” “Will you allow my man to drive you back, Mr. Stewart?” said the contractor. “I shall be very happy if you will make use of my carriage.” “Thank you, no,” was the reply; “the fly must return, and so Douglas and I may as well go in it. We are not exactly like man and wife, apt to quarrel by the way. If he were my better half, I would accept your offer at once; as it is, we will return as we came—much obliged, nevertheless.” Then Mr. Raidsford thought he must return home. “Good-night,” said Mr. Stewart; “though your views differ from mine, I do not say but there is much truth in them. That is the worst of our imperfect state of existence, there is truth in everything.” “Even in a promoter,” suggested Douglas Croft; and then the three shook hands with Mr. Raidsford, who drove back to Moorlands thinking to himself— “These great people are very curious individuals. If three men in my own rank of life had come together under such circumstances, there would have been hard words used, and a quarrel to a certainty. Is it that they are not in earnest, or is it civilization? One hears a great deal about civilization; is this one of its fruits?” and thus pondering, Mr. Raidsford returned home to the wife of his bosom, who, back from Hastings, was conducting her household on principles which seemed to the servants the reverse either of Christian or civilized. Perhaps this fact made the amicable warfare at Kemms Park seem all the more astonishing to the contractor, who had many things still to learn, though he was so clever about business and business matters. “If that be the way gentlemen quarrel,” he thought, “I cannot wonder at their looking down on us; I wonder now what they are thinking about me?” Had a little bird of the air carried what the trio were saying about him to Mr. Raidsford, he need not have covered his face and shut his eyes.