diate change of scene. But Mr. Douglas's interest in his farm, and his crops, and his labourers, and his cattle, led him to think that a little active occupation, added to the society of his wife, might make a few months, even in Lincolnshire, endurable.
"Liz," he said one day, after a saunter through the home farm, "would you like to live in the country?"
"Why, Ernest, I have never lived anywhere else; of course I should."
"But, you know, we must be in London during the session."
"Well, I should enjoy that still more. I have been so little in London."
"What a child you are for enjoying everything. I declare it is quite refreshing. But what I mean is, that I think we ought, instead of going loitering about during the recess at other people's houses, try to live in that dreary old barracks in the Fens, which calls itself my estate, and rejoices in the cockney name of Belleville, a name evidently derived from 'blue devils,' a malady from which I have suffered considerably there. But I think there would be some amusement, if I followed your father's example, and took part of the farm into my own hands."
"And I can help you to keep your accounts. I keep all papa's farm books in order."
"No; do you really?" he said, looking at her with extreme admiration. "That takes away my only difficulty. I did not feel up to grappling with account-books; but if you will take those in hand, we shall do very well."
"And may I have a school in the village, Ernest?"
"Of course, my child, two or three if you like—one for boys, one for girls, and one for adults, as great overgrown men and women choose to call themselves when they want to learn to read. Only don't ask me to come, Liz, to hear them stammer and stumble over their chapters and their
