Mr. Garratt hired the mare on which he had made so successful an appearance by the month, and determined to enjoy his long rides across the beautiful Surrey country. He thought matters well over, and came to the conclusion that it would be as well to keep up an appearance of paying attention to Hannah lest he should lose the bird in the hand before he had made sure of catching the one in the bush. But he found it difficult, for her voice set his teeth on edge, and her conversation, which was always harking round to evangelical subjects, and hits at her step-father and Margaret, irritated him till there were times when he could have shaken her. He was fully alive to the charms of the property that would one day be hers, and he saw her thrifty qualities clearly enough; but this was not all a man wanted, he told himself. He wanted besides a woman he could love and look at, and be proud of, and whose possession other men would envy him. "If Margaret only showed a little common-sense," he thought, "she might be riding beside me two or three times a week. She would look stunning in a habit, and I wouldn't mind standing it--and the nag, too. People would sit up a bit if one day they saw us trotting through Guildford together; as for Hannah, she isn't fit to lick her boots." Even in a worldly sense he had come to the conclusion that Margaret would suit him better. "She'd pull one up," he thought, "for I'm certain she's a swell, though she mayn't know it herself, while t'other would keep one where one is for the rest of one's days." He touched up the mare in his excitement, and went by the church and towards the green lane in a canter. Sir George Stringer, hidden behind the greenery of his garden, saw him pass. "That young bounder is going after Vincent's girl again," he said to himself. "I'd rather marry her myself than let him have her--not that she'd look at a grizzly old buffer five years her father's senior. I'll tell Hilda Lakeman about it; perhaps she will ask the girl there and get the nonsense out of her." He went up to town the next day, and made a point of lunching at the Embankment, and of sitting an hour in the flower-scented room afterwards; but Mrs. Lakeman was not as ready to help in the matter as he had imagined she would be. "Gerald's family has come to a pretty pass," she said, with contemptuous amusement. "I'd do anything for him, dear old boy; but if his girl is in love with this young man, what would be the good of bringing her to town? I couldn't undertake the responsibility of it, I couldn't indeed, old friend." "Did little Margaret seem fond of her tradesman?" Lena asked, sitting down on a low stool near her mother and looking up at Sir George. "Well, I saw them get closer together as they crossed the field, and loiter out of sight behind the hedge before they came into the garden, and she blushed when she spoke of him."