itself in, may find its thews and sinews the less powerful of the two.  When I walk down the village street, faces appear at windows, and figures, stolidly, at doors.  What I see is that, vaguely and remotely, American though I am, the fact that I am of ‘her ladyship’s blood,’ and that her ladyship—­American though she is—­has the claim on them of being the mother of the son of the owner of the land—­stirs in them a feeling that I have a shadowy sort of relationship in the whole thing, and with regard to their bad roofs and bad chimneys, to their broken palings, and damp floors, to their comforts and discomforts, a sort of responsibility.  That is the whole thing, and you—­just you, father—­will understand me when I say that I actually like it.  I might not like it if I were poor Rosy, but, being myself, I love it.  There is something patriarchal in it which moves me.

“Is it an abounding and arrogant delight in power which makes it appeal to me, or is it something better?  To feel that every man on the land, every woman, every child knew one, counted on one’s honour and friendship, turned to one believingly in time of stress, to know that one could help and be a finely faithful thing, the very knowledge of it would give one vigour and warm blood in the veins.  I wish I had been born to it, I wish the first sounds falling on my newborn ears had been the clanging of the peal from an old Norman church tower, calling out to me, ‘Welcome; newcomer of our house, long life among us!  Welcome!’ Still, though the first sounds that greeted me were probably the rattling of a Fifth Avenue stage, I have brought them something, and who knows whether I could have brought it from without the range of that prosaic, but cheerful, rattle.”

The rest of the letter was detail of a business-like order.  A large envelope contained the detail-notes of things to be done, notes concerning roofs, windows, flooring, park fences, gardens, greenhouses, tool houses, potting sheds, garden walls, gates, woodwork, masonry.  Sharp little sketches, such as Buttle had seen, notes concerning Buttle, Fox, Tread, Kedgers, and less accomplished workmen; concerning wages of day labourers, hours, capabilities.  Buttle, if he had chanced to see them, would have broken into a light perspiration at the idea of a young woman having compiled the documents.  He had never heard of the first Reuben Vanderpoel.

Her father’s reply to Betty was as long as her own to him, and gave her keen pleasure by its support, both of sympathetic interest and practical advice.  He left none of her points unnoted, and dealt with each of them as she had most hoped and indeed had felt she knew he would.  This was his final summing up: