od
there, her sleeves thrust a little back on her arms,--her hands a little
wet with the flowers, her face owning a half guilty pleasure of which
she was half ashamed. The others were involved in thoughts quite
different: but innocent Chatty, relieved by the slightest lifting of the
cloud, and glad that somebody should be coming to dinner, was to him the
central interest of the group.

"You put your foot in it, I think," he said to the rector, as they
walked back, "but I could not quite make out how. Who is the unhappy
woman, lost to all sense of shame, who wears no widow's cap?"

"I meant no harm," said the rector. "It was quite natural that I should
ask for Lady Markland. Of course it stands to reason that as he died
there, and they were mixed up with the whole business, and she is not in
my parish, they should know more of her than I."

"And so old Warrender is mixed up with a beautiful widow," said Dick. "He
doesn't seem the sort of fellow: but I suppose something of that sort
comes to most men, one time or another," he added, with a half laugh.

"What, a widow?" said the rector, with a smile. "Eh? What are you
saying? What is that? Well, as you ask, that is the Elms, Cavendish,
where I suppose you no longer have any desire to go."

"Oh, that is the Elms, is it?" said Cavendish. His voice had not its
usual cheerful sound. He stood quite still, with an interest which the
rector thought quite uncalled for. The Elms was a red brick house, tall
like the rectory, and of a similar date, the upper stories of which
appeared over a high wall. The quick shutting of a door in this wall was
the thing which had awakened the interest of Cavendish. A girl had come
hurriedly, furtively, out, and with the apparent intention of closing
it noiselessly had let the door escape from her hand, and marked her
departure by a clang which for a moment filled the air. She glanced
round her hastily, and with a face in which a very singular succession
of emotions were painted looked in the faces of the gentlemen. The first
whom she noticed was evidently the rector, to whom she gave a glance of
terror: but then turned to Dick, with a look of amazement which seemed
to take every other feeling away,--amazement and recognition. She stared
at him for a moment as if paralysed, and then, fluttering like a bird in
her light dress, under the high, dark line of the wall, hurried away.

"Bless me," said the rector troubled, "Lizzie Hampson! Now I reco