It was pleasant to be in the old county once more. There was help and healing in the kind grey houses and the smiling pastoral country. His wife was pleased to be near her people, and his work was of the lightest. But Willets was not yet forty, he had ambitions, and the wages were much smaller than what he had been getting. It would do, perhaps, for a year or two, and he knew that whenever he liked, his late master would be glad to have him back and would give him a post in the Yorkshire dales. Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Hilary, reigned in his stead. Willets announced to his wife that their time in Redmarley would be short. The young Squire married and in the bride's train came General Grantly with all the patience and enthusiasm and friendly anecdotal powers of your true angler; and in his train came like-minded brother officers to whom, it must be conceded, Hilary Ffolliot was always ready to offer hospitality. Things livened up a bit at Redmarley, and Willets decided to stay a little longer. Margery Ffolliot liked the Willets and was passionately sorry for them about the little girls; but it was the Ffolliot children who wove about Willets an unbreakable charm, binding him to his native village. One by one, with toddling steps and high, clear voices, they stormed the little house by the bridge and took its owners captive. Saving only their mother, Willets had a good deal more to do with the upbringing of the young Ffolliots in their earliest years than anybody else. Singly and collectively, they adored him, tyrannised over him, copied him, learnt from him, and wasted his time with a prodigality a more sporting master than the Squire might have resented seriously. Thus it fell out that offers came to Willets, good offers from places far more important than Redmarley, where there were possibilities both in the way of sport and of tips--there was a sad scarcity of tips at Redmarley--and yet he passed them by. Sometimes his wife would be a little reproachful, pointing out that they were saving nothing and he was throwing away good money. Willets had always some excellent reason for not leaving just then. Redmarley had possibilities; it would be a nice place by the time Master Grantly was grown up and brought his friends. No one else would take quite the same interest in it that he did; he was proud of the children, and money wasn't everything, and so Willets stayed on.