“To be sure, you must, dear,” said Mary, incautiously; and the word penetrated Walter’s heart as if a woman of twenty-five had said it all of a sudden and for the first time.

When they got home, Mary told Mr. Bartley he was to have the farm if he would pay the increased rent.

“That is all right,” said Bartley.  “Then to-morrow we can go home.”

“So soon!” said Mary, sorrowfully.

“Yes,” said Bartley, firmly; “the rest had better be done in writing.  Why, Mary, what is the use of staying on now?  We are going to live here in a month or two.”

“I forgot that,” said Mary, with a little sigh.  It seemed so ungracious to get what they wanted, and then turn their backs directly.  She hinted as much, very timidly.

But Bartley was inexorable, and they reached home next day.

Mary would have liked to write to Walter, and announce their safe arrival, but nature withheld her.  She was a child no longer.

Bartley went to the sharp solicitor, and had a long interview with him.  The result was that in about ten days he sent Walter Clifford a letter and the draft of a lease, very favorable to the landlord on the whole, but cannily inserting one unusual clause that looked inoffensive.

It came by post, and Walter read the letter, and told his father whom it was from.

“What does the fellow say?” grunted Colonel Clifford.

“He says:  ’We are doing very well here, but Hope says a bailiff can now carry out our system; and he is evidently sweet on his native place, and thinks the proposed rent is fair, and even moderate.  As for me, my life used to be so bustling that I require a change now and then; so I will be your tenant.  Hope says I am to pay the expense of the lease, so I have requested Arrowsmith & Cox to draw it.  I have no experience in leases.  They have drawn hundreds.  I told them to make it fair.  If they have not, send it back with objections.’”

“Oh! oh!” said Colonel Clifford.  “He draws the lease, does he?  Then look at it with a microscope.”

Walter laughed.

“I should not like to encounter him on his own ground.  But here he is a fish out of water; he must be.  However, I will pass my eye over it.  Where the farmer generally over-reaches us, if he draws the lease, is in the clauses that protect him on leaving.  He gets part possession for months without paying rent, and he hampers and fleeces the incoming tenant, so that you lose a year’s rent or have to buy him out.  Now, let me see, that will be at the end of the document—­No; it is exceedingly fair, this one.”

“Show it to our man of business, and let him study every line.  Set an attorney to catch an attorney.”

“Of course I shall submit it to our solicitor,” said Walter.

This was done, and the experienced practitioner read it very carefully.  He pronounced it unusually equitable for a farmer’s lease.