Mr Grey's house had probably been the object of this kind of
speculation to one or more persons, three times a week, ever since the
stage-coach had begun to pass through Deerbrook. Deerbrook was a rather
pretty village, dignified as it was with the woods of a fine park, which
formed the background to its best points of view. Of this pretty
village, Mr Grey's was the prettiest house, standing in a field, round
which the road swept. There were trees enough about it to shade without
darkening it, and the garden and shrubbery behind were evidently of no
contemptible extent. The timber and coal yards, and granaries, which
stretched down to the river side, were hidden by a nice management of
the garden walls, and training of the shrubbery.

In the drawing-room of this tempting white house sat Mrs Grey and her
eldest daughter, one spring evening. It was rather an unusual thing for
them to be in the drawing-room. Sophia read history and practised her
music every morning in the little blue parlour which looked towards the
road; and her mother sat in the dining-room, which had the same aspect.
The advantage of these rooms was, that they commanded the house of Mr
Rowland, Mr Grey's partner in the corn, coal, and timber business, and
also the dwelling of Mrs Enderby, Mrs Rowland's mother, who lived just
opposite the Rowlands. The drawing-room looked merely into the garden.
The only houses seen from it were the greenhouse and the summerhouse;
the latter of which now served the purpose of a schoolroom for the
children of both families, and stood on the boundary-line of the gardens
of the two gentlemen of the firm. The drawing-room was so dull, that it
was kept for company; that is, it was used about three times a-year,
when the pictures were unveiled, the green baize removed, and the
ground-windows, which opened upon the lawn, thrown wide, to afford to
the rare guests of the family a welcome from birds and flowers.

The ground-windows were open now, and on one side sat Mrs Grey, working
a rug, and on the other Sophia, working a collar. The ladies were
evidently in a state of expectation--a state exceedingly trying to
people who, living at ease in the country, have rarely anything to
expect beyond the days of the week, the newspaper, and their dinners.
Mrs Grey gave her needle a rest every few minutes, to listen! and rang
the bell three times in a quarter of an hour, to make inquiries of her
maid about the arrangements of t