"You've got just as many as you can use, Mr. Allan," he said, "and if you buy another one, it 'ud mean another b'y, and we shall have b'ys enough for me to keep in order as it is." So Allan held his hand. "And now I am a country gentleman," he said, "and I must go and live on my acres." Everybody in the neighbourhood wanted to know him. He was under none of the disadvantages of the new man about whom people have to ask each other, "Who is he?" He came to Matcham with the best possible credentials. His father was a man of old family, against whose name no evil thing had ever been written. His mother was an earl's daughter; and the estate which was his had been left him by a man whose memory was respected in the neighbourhood--a man of easy temper and open hand, a kind master, and a staunch friend. Allan found his hall-table covered with cards when he returned from his London holiday, and he was occupied for the next fortnight in returning the calls that had been made for the most part in his absence. To a shy young man this business of returning calls in an unknown land would have been terrible--invading unfamiliar drawing-rooms, and seeing strange faces, wondering which of two matrons was his hostess and which the friend or sister-in-law--an ordeal as awful as any mediæval torture; but Allan was not shy, and he accepted the situation with a winning ease which pleased everybody. When he blundered--and his blunders were rare--he laughed at his mistake, and turned it into a jest that served to help him through the first five minutes of small-talk. He had a quick eye, and in a room full of people saw at a glance the welcoming smile and extended hand which marked his hostess. "Quite an acquisition to the neighbourhood," said everybody; and the mothers of marriageable daughters were as eager to improve the acquaintance as Jane Austen's inimitable Mrs. Bennett was to cultivate the irreproachable Bingley. In the course of that round of visits Allan contrived to find out a good deal about the neighbourhood which was henceforward to be his home.