What had been lost was more than he could possibly understand.

Her father had planned these grounds which he was allowing a riotous second growth to swallow up.
"It's positively squalid!" cried Betty, with a little stamp of her foot.
Ware glanced about with dull eyes.

The air of neglect and decay which was everywhere visible, and which was such a shock to Betty, had not been reached in a season, he was really convinced that the place looked pretty much as it had always looked.
"I'll tell you, Betty, I'm busy this morning; you poke about and see what you want done and we'll do it," he said, and made a hasty retreat to his office, a little brick building at the other side of the house.
Betty returned to the porch and seating herself on the top step with her elbows on her knees and her chin sunk in the palms of her hands, gazed about her miserably enough.

She was still seated there when half an hour later Charley Norton galloped up the drive from the highroad.

Catching sight of her on the porch he sprang from the saddle, and, throwing his reins to a black boy, hurried to her side.
"Inspecting your domain, Betty ?" he asked, as he took his place near her on the step.
"Why didn't you tell me, Charley--or at least prepare me for this ?" she asked, almost tearfully.
"How was I to know, Betty?
I haven't been here since you went away, dear--what was there to bring me?
Old Tom would make a cow pasture out of the Garden of Eden, wouldn't he--a beautiful, practical, sordid soul he is!" "What am I going to do, Charley ?" "Keep after him until you get what you want, it's the only way to manage Tom that I know of." "It's horrid to have to assert one's self!" "You'll have to with Tom--you must, Betty--he won't understand anything else." Then he added: "Let's look around and see what's needed, a season or two of care will remedy the most of this neglect.