Now, in the second column of this book, the grain of meaning was placed, clean and dry, before her ladyship every morning.

She sometimes would ask to see the original letter; sometimes she simply answered the request by a "Yes," or a "No;" and often she would send for lenses and papers, and examine them well, with Mr.Horner at her elbow, to see if such petitions, as to be allowed to plough up pasture fields, were provided for in the terms of the original agreement.

On every Thursday she made herself at liberty to see her tenants, from four to six in the afternoon.
Mornings would have suited my lady better, as far as convenience went, and I believe the old custom had been to have these levees (as her ladyship used to call them) held before twelve.

But, as she said to Mr.
Horner, when he urged returning to the former hours, it spoilt a whole day for a farmer, if he had to dress himself in his best and leave his work in the forenoon (and my lady liked to see her tenants come in their Sunday clothes; she would not say a word, maybe, but she would take her spectacles slowly out, and put them on with silent gravity, and look at a dirty or raggedly-dressed man so solemnly and earnestly, that his nerves must have been pretty strong if he did not wince, and resolve that, however poor he might be, soap and water, and needle and thread, should be used before he again appeared in her ladyship's anteroom).

The out- lying tenants had always a supper provided for them in the servants'-hall on Thursdays, to which, indeed all comers were welcome to sit down.