KEDGERS The work at Stornham Court went on steadily, though with no greater rapidity than is usually achieved by rural labourers.

There was, however, without doubt, a certain stimulus in the occasional appearance of Miss Vanderpoel, who almost daily sauntered round the place to look on, and exchange a few words with the workmen.

When they saw her coming, the men, hastily standing up to touch their foreheads, were conscious of a slight acceleration of being which was not quite the ordinary quickening produced by the presence of employers.

It was, in fact, a sensation rather pleasing than anxious.

Her interest in the work was, upon the whole, one which they found themselves beginning to share.