Mr.Hazeldean therefore caught at the proposal even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom, catches, at last, at some battered old captain on half-pay, and replied that, as for rent, if the solicitor's client was a quiet, respectable man, he did not care for that, but that the gentleman might have it for the first year rent-free, on condition of paying the taxes, and putting the place a little in order.

If they suited each other, they could then come to terms.

Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply, Signor Riccabocca and his servant arrived; and, before the year's end, the squire was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent merely nominal, on condition that Signor Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in repair, barring the roof and fences, which the squire generously renewed at his own expense.

It was astonishing, by little and little, what a pretty place the Italian had made of it, and, what is more astonishing, how little it had cost him.

He had, indeed, painted the walls of the hall, staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own hands.