"What sort of a place are you looking for?" the landlord asked, looking at his visitor closely, and mentally appraising his worth. "Oh, quite a little place, I should say about twenty pounds a year. I suppose one could get a girl to help from the village, and could live for another eighty. That's about what I could afford." "Oh, yes, I should say you could do that," said the landlord, thoughtfully, "but I don't know that there is any such place to let anywhere about here. There is a nice cottage at the other end of the village just empty. It's got a good garden, and is rather away from the rest of the houses; but the rent is only half-a-crown a week. That wouldn't do for you." "Well, I wanted something better than that; but still I might have a look at it. Of course if I took it I should want to stay, and I might as well spend a little money in doing it up to my fancy as in paying higher rent. By the way, my name is Armstrong. Perhaps you wouldn't mind putting on your hat and showing me this place you speak of. We have been used to roughing it, and don't want anything fine." The cottage was certainly large and roomy, and stood in a pretty garden. But its appearance was not prepossessing, for it differed from most of the other little houses in the village inasmuch as it was not, like them, half hidden by roses and creepers climbing over it. "Yes, it's rough, decidedly rough," Mr. Armstrong said, "still there is a pretty view down the valley. Now I should save nearly fourteen pounds in rent by taking this instead of a twenty pound a year house; and if one were to put up a verandah round it, touch up the windows somehow, and put pretty paper on the walls, I should say that at the end of two years it would stand me in just the same. That and plenty of roses and things would make it a pretty little place. Who is the landlord?" "The landlord is Mr. Carne, up at The Hold; that's the big house on the hill. But he is away at present. Mr. Kirkland, a lawyer at Plymouth, is his agent, and sees to the letting of his houses and that sort of thing. His clerk comes over once a month to collect the rents. I expect you would have to go to him even if Mr. Carne was at home. Squire was never much down in the village in the best of times, and we have hardly seen his face since his sister's death." "Yes, they were telling us about that affair at Plymouth," the colonist said, quietly. "It was a bad business. Well, have you got some pretty sociable sort of fellows in the village? I like a chat as well as any man, and I should want some one to talk to." "Well, I don't know that they would be your sort," the landlord said, doubtfully. "There's the clergyman--and the doctor----"