a plain woman later, with hard, gray-blue eyes and fair hair drawn back from her forehead, a pink color that could never be counted a bloom, and a somewhat thin face, with a straight mouth and pointed chin; moreover, she had a voice that suggested a strong will and a narrow outlook.

It was a full year after James Barton's death that Gerald Vincent first set eyes on the village of Chidhurst, and was charmed by it. He looked carefully from right to left, hesitated, and stopped at the little shop to ask if there were any rooms to be had for the summer.

"There's a house, sir," said the woman; "it stands back among the trees, just as you come to the church. It was built for a vicarage, but Mr. Walford found it too big, so it's let to strangers."

"I don't want a house," the stranger said, impatiently.

Then a voice from the back called out, "There's Woodside Farm, mother."

"To be sure," said the woman. "The rooms have never been let since James Barton was first took ill; but I dare say she'll be glad to get somebody. You go past the church and along the road till you come to the duck-pond, then turn off to the right and walk on till you see it."

Mrs. Barton was spreading the white linen, which Towsey Pook had just washed, over the bushes in the Dutch garden, when suddenly she beheld not ten yards away a tall man in gray tweed, with dust-covered shoes and a knapsack on his shoulders. He was young—thirty or less, though at a first glance he might have been older; he looked studious, and as if he were a somebody, Mrs. Barton told herself later. His manner was a little awkward for the moment, but in his eye was courteous inquiry. The widow stopped and criticised him with quiet excitement, while he thought how good a picture she made with the sunflowers and sweet peas on either side of her, and the rose-bushes and patches of white linen spread out to dry in the foreground; and the yew hedges and the taller greenery behind added to the effect of her. For she was comely still, though she was nearly seven-and-thirty by this time; not stout, or even inclined that way, since, being an active woman, she took plenty of exercise and worried over much in secret, which prevented the spoiling of her figure.

Mr. Vincent asked if it would be possible to have some bread-and-butter and tea, to which she assented readily; and while he ate and drank in the living-place, he explained that he wanted to find a lodging in the neighborhood, to which he could bring his books and peacefully read and write for a few months. He hardly liked to propose himself as a lodger all at once, for there was an air of something that was almost distinction about the widow; it made him feel that if there were any social difference between them the advantage was on her side. She stood at first beside the oak table, and then was persuaded to sit, and she made a picture, framed in one of the big arm-chairs, that he never forgot, while she explained that there was a spare room that had not been slept in for three years past, and the best parlor that had not been used since Barton's funeral day. She bethought herself of the odor of mustiness which was beginning to pervade them both, since she had grudged a fire by which no one sat and gathered warmth. The farm produce, too, was good and plentiful; it would be easy to feed the stranger, and his stay would put some easily earned pounds into her pocket. Thus the arrangement came about, and each of them was satisfied.

He stayed all through the summer months, and when the autumn came he showed no signs of going. The widow grew more and more interested in him, and they often—he being a lonely man and she a lonely woman, and both unconsciously aware of it—had an hour's talk together; but it was a long time before it was other than rather awkward and even formal talk. Sometimes as he passed through the house to his own rooms he stopped to notice Hannah; but she was always ill at ease with him, and hurried away as fast as possible. He heard her speaking to Towsey sometimes, and occasionally even to her mother, in a way that made him call her "a spiteful little cat" to himself; but it was no concern of his; there was nothing of the cat about the mother, and that was the main thing.

Mrs. Barton was surprised at first that her lodger did not go to church on Sundays, and the neighbors were curious about it, which embarrassed her; but she felt that it was no business of hers, and that, since Mr. Vincent was evidently above them in position and learning, it did not become them to make remarks. Besides, as Towsey was always busy in the kitchen at the back, it was comfortable to remember, while she herself was in church on Sunday mornings, that some one was left in the house who might be called a protection to it; for tramps had been known to come so far, and even such a thing as a fire might happen. So when she departed in her alpaca gown with crape trimmings, her widow's cap inside her bonnet, and her prayer-book and black-edged handkerchief (she had six of a goodly size and serviceable thickness) in her hand, across the fields with Hannah by the short cut to the church, it was with a sense of calm contentment. Mr. Vincent used to stand in the porch and watch them start; then, filling his pipe, he smoked in peace, and revelled in the extra quiet of the Sabbath day. The incumbent of St. Martha's, a man of no particular attainments, who had slipped into orders through the back door of a minor theological college, had thought of calling on the stranger and tackling him about his soul, till he heard incidentally that one of the writers of Essays and Reviews, who had been staying at Guildford, had driven over to Woodside Farm. Then he came to the conclusion that he might possibly get worsted in argument, and it would be the better part of valor to leave his doubtful parishioner in peace, even though it ended in perdition.

II

For two summers and a winter Gerald Vincent lodged at Woodside Farm. He was a singularly silent man, and Mrs. Barton knew no more about him in the last month than she had done in the first. But gradually she grew fond of him. She watched him out of sight when he went for his walks, and felt her heart bound when she heard his returning footsteps. The best roses were cut for his writing-table, the ripest fruit for his dessert and breakfast, and once when she lingered in the best parlor, dusting it before he was down, she lifted a half-written slip and kissed it, knowing that his hand must have rested on it; for youth does not monopolize romance, and even eight-and-thirty can know its agitations. After a time Mr. Vincent became aware of her feeling for him; it embarrassed him a good deal, but he was touched by it. Then he realized almost with surprise the clear outline of her face and the sweet, firm curve of her lips. He told himself of her merits, her domestic virtues, and the manner in which, single-handed and calm-headed, she managed the farm. Gradually it came about that, instead of staying in his own room in the evening, he sat with her—he on one side and she on the other of the great fireplace in the living-room; and the companionship was all the more pleasant because Hannah was away. For Hannah was a good twelve years old by this time, and, for the sake of school advantages, staying with her grandparents at Petersfield, where she learned more and more fervently to despise the particular forms of the devil and all his works in which those who were not of her own way of thinking most delighted.

It was on those evenings, and while Mrs. Barton knitted socks which he knew