’No, father, you are too old for that work. Besides, those who go to the road-making are the rough and riotous young fellows who want high wages, and who spend their money in drink. No, such society is not for you.’ ’I don’t see that,’ said the father. ’As you say, the wages are very high; I am not so old that I cannot work.’ ’You are unaccustomed to the kind of work.’ ’I should get into the way of it, and I am no drunkard to waste my money.’ ’But you are a Luxmore.’ Oliver held up his head. That last was an unanswerable argument. He considered for a while, and then he said, ’I cannot borrow the money of Mr. Nanspian, he is ill. It is, of course, useless my asking Mr. Langford, he is not a lending, but a taking man.’ ’If we worked out the first debt, we can work out the second,’ said Honor. ’I know that you can get nothing from Chimsworthy, and I do not suppose you can get anything from Langford, nevertheless you might try. Mr. Langford knows you to be an industrious and a conscientious man. He has but to look in your face, father, to be sure that you would rather be cheated than cheat any one. Try Mr. Taverner Langford to-morrow.’ ’It is no good,’ sighed Oliver. ’Only wear out shoe leather for nothing. You go if you think anything of the chance. Folks say, walk with Hope, or you are walking backwards.’ ’I—I go to Mr. Langford!’ ’No need for that, when I have come to you,’ answered a voice at the open window. Honor started, looked up, and saw Taverner Langford there, looking at her, and then at Oliver. ’Won’t you step in and take a chair, sir?’ asked Honor, rising and moving towards the door. ’No, I am well where I am,’ answered Taverner, leaning his elbows on the bottom of the window and peering in. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, that shadowed the upper part of his face, but out of this shadow shone his eyes with phosphoric light. ’Father!’ exclaimed Honor, ’here is Mr. Langford.’ Oliver had risen and stood with his pipe in one hand leaning against one jamb of the chimney, looking wonderingly at the visitor. Langford had ascended the steps from the lane, and thus had appeared suddenly before the Luxmores. From the window no one that passed was visible unless he were seated on the top of a load of hay carted along the lane from the harvest-field. Oliver Luxmore went to the window, and, like his daughter, asked, ’Will you step inside, sir?’