doctor was an old bachelor. The rector took no account of
the two stranger ladies whom now and then his eye roved over in service
time. Truly they were not often to be seen in his church, for the
distance was too far for Mrs. Copley to walk, unless in exceptionally
good days; when the weather and the footing and her own state of body
and mind were in rare harmony over the undertaking. There was nobody
else to take notice of them, and nobody did take notice of them; and in
process of time it came to pass, not unnaturally, that Mrs. Copley
began to get tired of living alone. For though it is extremely pleasant
to be quiet, yet it remains true that man was made a social animal; and
if he is in a healthy condition he craves contact with his fellows. As
the winter wore away, some impression of this sort seemed to force
itself upon Mrs. Copley.

"I wonder what your father is dreaming of!" she said one day, when she
had sat for some time looking at Dolly, who was drawing. "He seems to
think it quite natural that you should live down here at this cottage,
year in and year out, like a toad in a hole; with no more life or
society. We might as well be shut up in a nunnery, only then there
would be more of us. I never heard of a nunnery with only two nuns."

"Are you getting tired of it, mother?"

"Tired!--that isn't the word. I think I am growing stupid, and
gradually losing my wits."

"We have not been a bit stupid this winter, mother, dear."

"We haven't seen anybody."

"The family are soon coming to Brierley House, Mrs. Jersey says. I
daresay you will see somebody then."

"I don't believe we shall. The English don't like strangers, I tell
you, Dolly, unless they come recommended by something or other;--and
there is nothing to recommend us."

Mrs. Copley uttered this last sentence with such a dismal sort of
realisation, that Dolly laughed out.

"You are too modest, mother. I do not believe things are as bad as
that."

"You will see," said her mother. "And I hope you will stop going to see
the housekeeper then."

"I do not know why I should," said Dolly quietly.

However, this question began to occupy her; not the question of her
visiting Mrs. Jersey or of any one else visiting them; but this
prolonged living alone to which her mother and she seemed to be
condemned. It was not good, and it was not right; and Dolly saw that it
was beginning to work unfavourably upon Mrs. Copley's health and
spirits. But London? and