‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, he said. ‘It’s against my own interest, but I always like to oblige a lady—particularly such a lady as you, Mrs. Fiander. I’ll drive round the country and see if I can persuade people to buy up those pigs by private contract. I know a pig-jobber over Shaftesbury side as might be glad to take a good many off you, if he got them at a low price. If I understand you, Mrs. Fiander, the price is not an object to you?’ ‘No—o,’ faltered Rosalie. ‘Of course, I should like as much money as possible for them, but the price is not so important as to get rid of the animals as soon as possible.’ ‘Just so,’ agreed the auctioneer cheerfully. ‘Well, Mrs. Fiander, I shall lose by it, as I say, but I will try and arrange matters for you in this way. Under the circumstances, ma’am, I grudge no time or trouble spent in your service. I am always thought to be a lady’s man—my late poor wife used to say that my consideration for ladies injured the business; but, as I used to tell her, a man has a heart or else he has n’t. _If_ he has a heart—if he has more feelings than his neighbours, he is n’t to blame for it. “Let the business go, my dear,” I ’d say, “but don’t ask me to be hard on a woman.”’ It had been whispered among the gossips of Branston that during the lifetime of the late Mrs. Wilson her lord had been wont to correct her occasionally with a boot-jack, but these rumours had not reached Rosalie’s ears; and even if they had she would probably have disbelieved them. Nevertheless, she did not quite like the manner in which the gallant auctioneer leered at her, nor his unnecessarily warm pressure of her hand on saying good-bye. She drove homewards with a mixture of feelings. The inauguration of her new plan seemed to involve a considerable amount of risk, not to say loss; she felt conscious of the fact that she owed her very partial success more to the persuasion of her beauty than to faith in her prospects as a woman of business; yet there was, after all, satisfaction in thinking that she had carried her point. CHAPTER VII He that will not love must be My scholar, and learn this of me: There be in love as many fears As the summer’s corn has ears. * * * Would’st thou know, besides all these, How hard a woman ’t is to please, How cross, how sullen, and how soon She shifts and changes like the moon. HERRICK. IT was with some trepidation that Rosalie awaited Isaac’s visit on the Sunday following that long and eventful week. The good fellow was, indeed, so overcome when he found himself seated once more in the familiar chair, with the vacant place opposite to him, that she had not courage to make a confession which would, she knew, distress and annoy him—a confession which would have to be made, nevertheless.