"But, Edmund, couldn't you be sure that it is just what he would say, whatever the people were?" "I am equally sure that the exaction of rents is not the way to see people at their best." "Come in, come in! We have all our settling in to do, and no time for you two to fight." Edmund, Mary, Dorothea, and Sophia Carbonel were second cousins, who had always known one another in the house of the girls' father, a clergyman in a large country town. Edmund had been in the army just in time for the final battles of the Peninsular war, and had since served with the army of occupation and in Canada. He had always meant that Mary should be his wife, but the means were wanting to set up housekeeping, until the death of an old uncle of his mother's made him heir to Greenhow Farm, an estate bringing in about 500 pounds a year. Mary and her next sister Dora had in the meantime lost their parents, and had been living with some relations in London, where their much younger sister Sophy was at school, until Edmund, coming home, looked over the farm, decided that it would be a fit home for the sisters, and retired from the army forthwith. Thus then, after a brief tour among the Lakes, they had taken up Dora in London, and here they were; Sophy was to join them when the holidays began. Disorder reigned indeed within, and hammers resounded, nor was the passage easy among the packing-cases that encumbered the narrow little vestibule whence the stairs ascended. Under the verandah were the five sash windows of the three front rooms, the door, of course, in the middle. Each had a little shabby furniture, to which the Carbonels were adding, and meant to add more; the dining-room had already been papered with red flock in stripes, the drawing-room with a very delicate white, on which were traced in tender colouring-baskets of vine leaves and laburnums. Dora gave a little scream. "Look! Between the windows, Mary; see, the laburnums and grapes are hanging upward." "Stupid people!" exclaimed Mary, "I see. Happily, it is only on that one piece, but how Edmund will be vexed." "Perhaps there is another piece unused." "I am sure I hope there is! Don't you know, Edmund fell in love with it at Paris. It was his first provision for future housekeeping, and it was lying laid up in lavender all these years till we were ready for it." "It is only that one division, which is a comfort." "What's the matter?" and the master of the house came in. "Senseless beings! It must be covered directly. It is a desight to the whole room. Here!" and he went out to the carpenter, who was universal builder to the village, and was laying down the stair carpet. "Here, Hewlett, do you see what you have done?" Hewlett, a large man with a smooth, plump, but honest face, came in, in his shirt sleeves, apron, and paper cap, touched his forehead to the ladies, stood, and stared. "Can't you see?" sharply demanded the captain. Hewlett scratched his head, and gazed round.