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"Yes, I put an advertisement in a number of papers, offering comfortable homes to two families willing to work on the land—at the normal agricultural rate, of course. I had dozens of replies, and I'd never have made up my mind about them—for they all sounded so heart-rending—if two families hadn't suddenly turned up. They both came—the Turners the first day and the Bensons the day after. They'd literally nowhere else to go, so I had to keep them."

"Lucky for you that no one else turned up after that."

"I don't know what I should have done if they had, for the place is quite full now. The women run the house and the men work on the land. That's five altogether, for Bill Turner and Tiggy Benson both work with their fathers. Ivory's the best worker, but the others don't do too badly. It's only that they're not used to outdoor work, while he was a roadman at one time I believe. Besides, he never wants to go out off the place, the way the others do. He won't even go to church with Cousin Anne. She's a Catholic, you know, and when she found out he was too she offered to take him with her in the car when she goes to church at Sandlake. But so far he's always run away and hidden when she calls for him."