ed with every man and woman in the parish; thinking
her husband to be quite as good as the squire in regard to position,
and to be infinitely superior to the squire, or any other man in
the world, in regard to his personal self;--a handsome, pleasant,
well-dressed lady, who has no nonsense about her. Such a one was, and
is, Mrs. Fenwick.

Now the Balfours were considerable people at Loring, though their
property was not county property; and it was always considered that
Janet Balfour might have done better than she did, in a worldly point
of view. Of that, however, little had been said at Loring, because it
soon became known there that she and her husband stood rather well in
the country round about Bullhampton; and when she asked Mary Lowther
to come and stay with her for six months, Mary Lowther's aunt, Miss
Marrable, had nothing to say against the arrangement, although she
herself was a most particular old lady, and always remembered that
Mary Lowther was third or fourth cousin to some earl in Scotland.
Nothing more shall be said of Miss Marrable at present, as it is
expedient, for the sake of the story, that the reader should fix his
attention on Bullhampton till he find himself quite at home there.
I would wish him to know his way among the water meads, to be quite
alive to the fact that the lodge of Hampton Privets is a mile and a
quarter to the north of Bullhampton church, and half a mile across
the fields west from Brattle's mill; that Mr. Fenwick's parsonage
adjoins the churchyard, being thus a little farther from Hampton
Privets than the church; and that there commences Bullhampton street,
with its inn,--the Trowbridge Arms, its four public-houses, its three
bakers, and its two butchers. The bounds of the parsonage run down
to the river, so that the Vicar can catch his trout from his own
bank,--though he much prefers to catch them at distances which admit
of the appurtenances of sport.

Now there must be one word of Mary Lowther, and then the story shall
be commenced. She had come to the vicarage in May, intending to stay
a month, and it was now August, and she had been already three months
with her friend. Everybody said that she was staying because she
intended to become the mistress of Hampton Privets. It was a month
since Harry Gilmore had formally made his offer, and as she had not
refused him, and as she still stayed on, the folk of Bullhampton were
justified in their conclusions. She was a tall girl,