ems
hopeless. Can you tell me why you--no, don't answer, don't try to
tell why you went to the convent; but tell me why you came to live in
this neighbourhood?"

"Well, the land is very cheap here, and I wanted a large piece of
ground."

"Oh, so you've settled here?"

"Yes; I've built a cottage... But I haven't been able to lay the
garden out yet."

"Built a cottage?"

"What is there surprising in that?"

"Only this, that I returned home resolved to do some building at
Riversdale--a gate lodge," and he talked to her of the gate lodge he
had in mind, until he became aware of the incongruity. "But I didn't
come here to talk to you of gate lodges. Tell me, Evelyn, how do you
spend your time?"

"I go to town every morning to teach singing; I have singing-classes."

"So you are a singing-mistress now. Well, everything comes round at
last. Your mother--"

"Yes, everything comes round again," she said, sighing; "and the
neighbourhood isn't inconvenient. There is a good train in the
morning and a good train in the evening; the one you came by is a
wretched one, but if you had come by the later train you would have
seen less of me. You're not sorry?"

"My dear Evelyn, don't be affected. I'm trying to take it all in. You
have retreated from the convent, and are now a singing-mistress. Have
you lost your voice?"

"I'm afraid a good deal of it." And, pointing with her parasol, she
said, "There is the inn; I will tell them to fetch your bag."

As she went towards the "Stag and Hounds" he congratulated himself
that the earlier woman still subsisted in the later, there could be
no doubt of that, and in sufficient proportion for her to create a
new life, and out of nothing but her own wits, for if she had escaped
from the convent with her intelligence, or part of it, she hadn't
escaped with her money; the nuns had got her money safe enough. She
would be loth to admit it, but it could not be otherwise. So out of
her own wits she had negotiated the purchase of a large piece of
ground (she had said a large piece), and built a cottage, and a very
pretty cottage too, he was sure of that; and his face assumed a blank
expression, for he was away with her in some past time, in the midst
of an architectural discussion. But returning gradually from this
happy past, her intelligence seemed to him like some strong twine or
wire! "How clever of her to have discovered this country where land
was cheap!" And he looked round, seeing