TWO:Margaret was sitting near the window at needle-work, and Edith in her high-backed arm-chair, was knitting in the chimney-corner. Margaret blushing deeply, started from her seat as her eyes so unexpectedly encountered those of the baron.Reuben was now alone at Odiam with his two small children and Harry. David and Bill, unlike their predecessors, did not start their career as farm-hands till well past babyhood. Reuben no longer economised in labourhe had nearly a dozen men in regular employ, to say nothing of casuals. Sometimes he thought regretfully of the stalwart sons who were to have worked for him, to have run the farm without any outside help ... but that dream belonged to bygone days, and he resolutely put it from him. After all, his posse of farm-hands was the envy of the neighbourhood; no one in Peasmarsh employed so many.
