Martin had known the spot, and every detail of it, from his boyhood. The timber, indeed, had greatly grown,--graceful saplings had become stately trees, and feathery foliage deepened into leafy shade; but he himself had grown older, too, and his sense of enjoyment, dulled and deadened with years, saw nothing in the scene to awaken pleasure. As for Lady Dorothea, she had reasoned herself into the notion that the walls of her own grounds were the boundaries of a prison, and had long convinced herself that she was a suffering martyr to some mysterious sense of duty. From the drowsy languor in which they reclined they were both aroused, as the pace of the carriage gradually diminished from a smooth brisk trot to an uneven jolting motion, the very reverse of agreeable. “What have they done? Where are they going?” said Lady Dorothea, peevishly. And Martin called out from the window, in tones even less gentle. “Oh, it's the new approach; the road is not quite completed,” said he, half sulkily, as he resumed his place. “Another of Miss Martin's clever devices, which, I must say, I never concurred in.” “Why, you always professed to hate the old road by the stables.” “So I did; but I never agreed to passing round the back of the house, and thus destroying the privacy of the flower-garden,--the only spot I may dare to call my own. Oh, dear! I shall be shaken to death. Have they broken the carriage? I 'm certain they 've smashed the spring at my side!” Martin gave a cold, supercilious smile, the only reply to these words. “They 've only broken a trace, I perceive,” said he, casting a hurried glance through the window, as the carriage came to a dead stop. “You are equanimity itself, sir, this morning,” said her Ladyship, in a voice almost tremulous with anger. “I wonder if this admirable temper will befriend you when you shall see the cost of this precious piece of road-making?” “It employs the people,” said he, coolly. “Employs the people! How I hate that cant phrase! Can't they employ themselves on their own farms? Have n't they digging and draining, and whatever it is, to do of their own? Must they of necessity depend on us for support, and require that we should institute useless works to employ them?”