done for him, he seemed to look around and expect that this time too some one would do him this little service.  No one stirred, and he stooped down for it himself.  It struck me as so piteous, that from that moment I have never been able to see any one let a thing fall, without myself picking it up.  But, of course, as it is not always proper, and as I cannot,” she continued, smiling, “tell my story every time I do it, in future I will try to contain myself.”

In the meantime the fine arrangements which the two friends had been led to make for themselves, went uninterruptedly forward.  Every day they found something new to think about and undertake.

One day as they were walking together through the village, they had to remark with dissatisfaction how far behind-hand it was in order and cleanliness, compared to villages where the inhabitants were compelled by the expense of building-ground to be careful about such things.

“You remember a wish we once expressed when we were traveling in Switzerland together,” said the Captain, “that we might have the laying out of some country park, and how beautiful we would make it by introducing into some village situated like this, not the Swiss style of building, but the Swiss order and neatness which so much improve it.”

“And how well it would answer here!  The hill on which the castle stands, slopes down to that projecting angle.  The village, you see, is built in a semicircle, regularly enough, just opposite to it.  The brook runs between.  It is liable to floods; and do observe the way the people set about protecting themselves from them; one with stones, another with stakes; the next puts up a boarding, and a fourth tries beams and planks; no one, of course, doing any good to another with his arrangement, but only hurting himself and the rest too.  And then there is the road going along just in the clumsiest way possible,—­up hill and down, through the water, and over the stones.  If the people would only lay their hands to the business together, it would cost them nothing but a little labor to run a semi-circular wall along here, take the road in behind it, raising it to the level of the houses, and so give themselves a fair open space in front, making the whole place clean, and getting rid, once for all, in one good general work, of all their little trifling ineffectual makeshifts.”

“Let us try it,” said the Captain, as he ran his eyes over the lay of the ground, and saw quickly what was to be done.

“I can undertake nothing in company with peasants and shopkeepers,” replied Edward, “unless I may have unrestricted authority over them.”