st affectionate nature, they naturally
turned their heads and smiled if a pretty girl passed by, which was
rather disconcerting to the latter if she were unused to society. Every
belle in the village soon had a lover, and when the belles were all
allotted those who scarcely deserved that title had their turn, many of
the soldiers being not at all particular about half-an-inch of nose more
or less, a trifling deficiency of teeth, or a larger crop of freckles
than is customary in the Saxon race. Thus, with one and another,
courtship began to be practised in Overcombe on rather a large scale, and
the dispossessed young men who had been born in the place were left to
take their walks alone, where, instead of studying the works of nature,
they meditated gross outrages on the brave men who had been so good as to
visit their village.

Anne watched these romantic proceedings from her window with much
interest, and when she saw how triumphantly other handsome girls of the
neighbourhood walked by on the gorgeous arms of Lieutenant Knockheelmann,
Cornet Flitzenhart, and Captain Klaspenkissen, of the thrilling York
Hussars, who swore the most picturesque foreign oaths, and had a
wonderful sort of estate or property called the Vaterland in their
country across the sea, she was filled with a sense of her own
loneliness. It made her think of things which she tried to forget, and
to look into a little drawer at something soft and brown that lay in a
curl there, wrapped in paper. At last she could bear it no longer, and
went downstairs.

'Where are you going?' said Mrs. Garland.

'To see the folks, because I am so gloomy!'

'Certainly not at present, Anne.'

'Why not, mother?' said Anne, blushing with an indefinite sense of being
very wicked.

'Because you must not. I have been going to tell you several times not
to go into the street at this time of day. Why not walk in the morning?
There's young Mr. Derriman would be glad to--'

'Don't mention him, mother, don't!'

'Well then, dear, walk in the garden.'

So poor Anne, who really had not the slightest wish to throw her heart
away upon a soldier, but merely wanted to displace old thoughts by new,
turned into the inner garden from day to day, and passed a good many
hours there, the pleasant birds singing to her, and the delightful
butterflies alighting on her hat, and the horrid ants running up her
stockings.

This garden was undivided from Loveday's, the two having or