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146 was evident that the Council, though supreme in the hall, was not so in the town.

The rumour spread abroad that the great and wealthy Lord Stranleigh had actually spent a night in the village; that the huge red automobile was his; that the haughty, disdainful chauffeur, who mixed not with the populace, and answered no man who inquired about horse-power, was in reality Lord Stranleigh's servant. Up to this morning the Earl of Stranleigh had been merely a name and a legend. The youth of the village imagined him a giant ten feet high, with a fierce and frowning countenance; and now here he was, walking up their main street, a really nice-looking young man, affable and agreeable, not nearly so high and mighty as his own chauffeur; laughing and chatting with two farmers as the trio slowly made their way to the inn. So slowly did they walk that the members of the Council for the most part passed them by. Greenleaves, the grocer, had gone bustling up the street, swelling with importance, as a man whose every minute was of moment, as Stranleigh remarked, when the stout tradesman puffed past.

A little way up the street stood one of the doomed buildings, just completed. Although quite new, there was nothing raw in its appearance, and so excellently in keeping with the ancient houses was its architecture that already it nestled