ence."

"What's inconvenience in your own house isn't anything of the kind in
a tavern," she said. "We're used to that. But it doesn't matter
to-day. You're the only transient; that is, that eats here," she
added.

I wanted very much to ask something about the lady who had gone to
school in Walford, but I thought it would be well to approach that
subject by degrees.

"Apparently," said I, "your house is not full."

"No," said she, "not at this precise moment of time. Do you want some
more tea?"

The tone in which she said this made me feel sure she was the mother
of the boy, and when she had given me the tea, and looked around in a
general way to see that I was provided with what else I needed, she
left the room.

After supper I looked into the large room where I had registered; it
was lighted, and was very comfortably furnished with easy-chairs and a
lounge, but it was an extremely lonely place, and, lighting a cigar, I
went out for a walk. It was truly a beautiful country, and, illumined
by the sunset sky, with all its forms and colors softened by the
growing dusk, it was more charming to me than it had been by daylight.

As I returned to the inn I noticed a man standing at the entrance of a
driveway which appeared to lead back to the stable-yards. "Here is
some one who may talk," I thought, and I stopped.

[Illustration: "WENT OUT FOR A WALK"]

"This ought to be a good country for sport," I said--"fishing, and
that sort of thing."

"You're stoppin' here for the night?" he asked. I presumed from his
voice and appearance that he was a stable-man, and from his tone that
he was disappointed that I had not brought a horse with me.

I assented to his question, and he said:

"I never heard of no fishin'. When people want to fish, they go to a
lake about ten miles furder on."

"Oh, I do not care particularly about fishing," I said, "but there
must be a good many pleasant roads about here."

"There's this one," said he. "The people on wheels keep to it." With
this he turned and walked slowly towards the back of the house.

"A lemon-loving lot!" thought I, and as I approached the porch I saw
that the lady who had gone to school at Walford was standing there. I
did not believe she had been eating lemons, and I stepped forward
quickly for fear that she should depart before I reached her.

"Been taking a walk?" she said, pleasantly. There was something in the
general air of this young woman which indicated th