xpectancy.
Just now the eyes were wistful, questioning.

"It must have been a relation of yours, I think," she was saying,
"because her name was Philippa Harford too." It was an assertion, but
Philippa answered the eyes rather than the words.

"She was my aunt."

"How the years go by, don't they?" The stranger seemed to be trying to
lead the conversation away from the personal. "And one really doesn't
notice their passing. One lies on the shelf and gets dusty as the
world goes on. Are you going this way? May I walk with you? This is
an unconventional meeting. Will you count it sufficient introduction
that I knew your aunt many years ago? My name is Isabella Vernon, but
that probably conveys nothing to you."

"By all means let us walk together," answered Philippa readily. "I had
been watching the sunset, and the moor seemed so solitary."

"It is. That is why I love it. Dear Bessmoor. Ever changing, yet
ever the same--suiting all moods--sympathetic--enveloping. I have a
cottage in the heart of her, where I live the simple life, which I
like, but which for most people is a synonym for few baths and many
discomforts. Do you live near here?"

"No, I am only staying here."

"But you know this part of the country."

"No," replied Philippa again. "It is all new to me. I only arrived
yesterday."

And in her heart she was thinking, "Here is some one who could probably
tell me many things I want to know," and yet how impossible to speak of
such matters to a stranger.

Isabella Vernon seemed anxious to make friends.

"If you do not know the neighbourhood, I will explain the geography,"
she said pleasantly. "This is an excellent point of view. See, over
there,"--she indicated the direction with her hand as she spoke,--"on
the other side of the moor lies the village of Denwick. It has a very
fine church--you can just see the tower--and it used to be a place of
some importance in the dim ages. There are villages dotted all over
this part of the country, right down to the sea.

"'Renwick and Deanwick, Bessmoor and Ling,
Northam and Southam lie all in a ring,'

as the country-people say about here. Eastminster is over there----"
again she pointed. "On fine days you can see the spire of the
cathedral, but not from here--from a point about two miles further
across Bessmoor. If you are staying some time you ought to explore."

Again her eyes questioned, and Philippa answered--

"I do not know