haracter with your aunt. You may be sure she will, from the first, be
influenced much more by your behaviour than by anything I can say."

"Yes, I know," murmured Edith. "I will do my very best."

She would have liked to say something about helping her father in his
difficulties, but the shyness that generally overcame her when she
talked to him prevented any further words on the subject; and Dr. Harley
began to draw her attention to the objects of interest they were
passing, and to remark that in another twenty minutes they would be
half-way to Silchester.

It seemed a long while to Edith before the train drew up in the large,
glass-roofed station, so different from the little platform at
Winchcomb, with the station-master's white cottage and fragrant
flower-borders. Silchester is not a very large town, but to the
country-bred girl the noise and bustle of the station, and of the first
two or three streets through which they were driven in the cab Dr.
Harley had called, seemed almost bewildering.

Very soon, however, they began to leave shops and busy pavements behind,
and to pass pretty, fancifully-built villas, with very high-sounding
names, and trim flower-gardens in front. Even these ceased after a
while, and there were first some extensive nursery grounds, and then
green open fields on each hand.

"It will be quite the country after all, papa!" exclaimed Edith,
surprised.

"Not quite, Edith. You will only be two or three miles out of
Silchester, instead of twenty miles from everywhere, as we are at
Winchcomb. Look! that is Aunt Rachel's house, just where the old Milford
Lane turns out of the road--that house at the corner, I mean."

"Where?" said Edith, half-bewildered. Her unaccustomed eyes could see
nothing but greenery and flowers at first, for Miss Harley's long, low,
two-storey cottage was entirely overgrown with dense masses of ivy and
other creeping plants. It stood well back from the road, in a grassy,
old-fashioned garden, shaded by some fine elms; and one magnificent
pear-tree, just now glorious in a robe of white blossoms, grew beside
the entrance-gate.

"Oh, papa, what a lovely old house!" cried the girl involuntarily. "Did
you know it was like this?"

Dr. Harley smiled.

"I suppose you think it lovely, Edith. I have often wondered, for my own
part, why your aunt should bury herself here. But come--jump out; there
she is at the door. The King's Majesty would not draw her to the garden
gate,