t that what was a new discovery to
herself had become a common topic about the streets. High-Place Hall
was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; all the
shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance of her being
a customer.

Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so new
to her in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.

When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render
chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a lover's
feeling, thought she would like to look at the outside of High-Place
Hall. She went up the street in that direction.

The Hall, with its grey facade and parapet, was the only residence of
its sort so near the centre of the town. It had, in the first place, the
characteristics of a country mansion--birds' nests in its chimneys,
damp nooks where fungi grew and irregularities of surface direct from
Nature's trowel. At night the forms of passengers were patterned by the
lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.

This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of the premises
having been in that lawless condition which accompanies the entry of a
new tenant. The house was entirely of stone, and formed an example of
dignity without great size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still
less consequential, yet the old-fashioned stranger instinctively said
"Blood built it, and Wealth enjoys it" however vague his opinions of
those accessories might be.

Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been wrong, for
until this very evening, when the new lady had arrived, the house had
been empty for a year or two while before that interval its occupancy
had been irregular. The reason of its unpopularity was soon made
manifest. Some of its rooms overlooked the market-place; and such a
prospect from such a house was not considered desirable or seemly by its
would-be occupiers.

Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights there. The lady
had obviously arrived. The impression that this woman of comparatively
practised manner had made upon the studious girl's mind was so deep that
she enjoyed standing under an opposite archway merely to think that the
charming lady was inside the confronting walls, and to wonder what
she was doing. Her admiration for the architecture of that front was
entirely on account of the inmate it screened. Though for that matter
the architecture de