CHAPTER XXVI. 



With the exception of one brief holiday which Miss Bads- 

 worth spent at Cromer and Lavvy in Cornwall, which re- 

 laxation they took at separate times, the two ladies stuck 

 to their work with unremitting diligence. 



" Without practical experience, Lavvy, I would never have 

 believed that the amount of business in the country requiring 

 personal superintendence could exist. I feel quite grateful 

 that I did not realise it at first, for I should have felt more 

 despondent than I did. Grimes certainly is not an opti- 

 mistic personage ; at this moment I am in a dilemma, I 

 have to wish for rain for the roots and fine weather for the 

 early harvest." Miss Badsworth, in her riding habit, had 

 cast herself into an easy-chair and was fanning herself with 

 her hat. 



*' If you have to wish for either, auntie, wish for rain," her 

 niece said, looking up from her journal, which she religiously 

 kept. " Things are getting burnt up, and the ground is as 

 hard as iron. I have been looking through Uncle Hugo's 

 diaries and find he used to begin cub-hunting quite early in 

 September in some years, I suppose it depended on the 

 season ; I can't find his hunting diary for this year, or the 

 original copy of Beckford ; Mr. Morgan says he has often 

 seen the latter on this table. I have been through all the 

 bookshelves twice. Look at these complaints of losses by 

 foxes. It's true nobody has lost a flock of sheep yet, but it's 

 rather wonderful if all these reports are correct. There's this 

 old horror, Mr. Silas Tucker ; he says Mrs. Tucker has lost 

 three pens of prize fowls, and I don't believe there is a single 

 fox on his estate." 



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