Wherever she went, Nell found the people rejoicing at the coming advent of the new lord, who was anything but new to most of them, who, like Wicks, knew and were attached to him. Before she had finished her shopping, Nell found herself quite interested in the new master of Anglemere, and wondered whether she should see him and what he would be like. By the time she had got back to the lodge, her headache had gone, and she was singing to herself as she arranged some flowers she had picked on her way through the woods. In the afternoon, she went for a long walk; but, long as it was, it did not by any means take her out of the domains of the Earl of Angleford, which stretched away for miles round the great house. She saw farms dotted here and there on the hillsides, and looking prosperous with their cattle and sheep feeding in the fields, and the corn waving like a green sea on the slopes of the hills. There were large plantations, in which she disturbed the game; and parklike spaces, in which colts frisked beside the brood mares, for which Anglemere was famous all the world over. Everything spoke in an eloquent and emphatic way of wealth, and Nell sighed and grew rather pensive, now and again, as she thought of the denizens of Beaumont Buildings, and the grinding poverty in which their lives were spent. But that was like Nell--tender-hearted Nell of Shorne Mills. Dick came home to dinner, tired, and approved of the steak, which, he declared, beat even the ham and eggs. "We're getting on first-rate," he said, in answer to Nell's inquiry; "and I'm afraid we shan't make a very long stay here. I'd hoped that this job would spin out for--oh, ever so long; but it will have to be pushed through in a few weeks. They're waking up at the house like mad. Money makes the mare go! And there's no end to the money this young lord has got. But, from all I hear, he's a decent sort----" Nell laughed. "Please don't you begin to sing his praises, Dick," she said. "I've heard a general chorus of laudations all the morning, and I think I am just a wee bit tired of my Lord of Angleford! Though I'm very grateful to him for this change! I wish we could turn lodgekeepers, Dick! Fancy living here always!" They were seated in the porch--Dick smoking away furiously--and she gazed wistfully at the greensward, and the trunks of the great elms glowing like copper in the rays of the setting sun. "And, oh, Dick!" she cried, "if only Mr. Falconer could be here! How he would enjoy it! He's always talking of the country, and how much good it would do him!" "Poor beggar--yes!" said Dick, with a nod of sympathy. "I say, Nell, why shouldn't we ask him to pay us a visit?" Nell grew radiant at the suggestion; then looked doubtful. "But may we?" she asked. "This isn't our lodge, Dick; though I have begun to feel as if it were."