But I have heard that the first time she told all this to Captain James, he told her point-blank that he had heard from Mr.Smithson that the farms were much neglected and the rents sadly behind-hand, and that he meant to set to in good earnest and study agriculture, and see how he could remedy the state of things.

My lady would, I am sure, be greatly surprised, but what could she do?
Here was the very man she had chosen herself, setting to with all his energy to conquer the defect of ignorance, which was all that those who had presumed to offer her ladyship advice had ever had to say against him.
Captain James read Arthur Young's "Tours" in all his spare time, as long as he was an invalid; and shook his head at my lady's accounts as to how the land had been cropped or left fallow from time immemorial.

Then he set to, and tried too many new experiments at once.

My lady looked on in dignified silence; but all the farmers and tenants were in an uproar, and prophesied a hundred failures.

Perhaps fifty did occur; they were only half as many as Lady Ludlow had feared; but they were twice as many, four, eight times as many as the captain had anticipated.