ine brick mansion, built in
the latter days of Tudor house architecture, with many gables and
countless high chimneys,--very picturesque to the eye, but not in
all respects comfortable as are the modern houses of the well-to-do
squirearchy of England. And, indeed, it was subject to certain
objectionable characteristics which in some degree justified the
scorn which Mr. Amedroz intended to throw upon it when he declared
it to be a farmhouse. The gardens belonging to it were large and
excellent; but they did not surround it, and allowed the farm
appurtenances to come close up to it on two sides. The door which
should have been the front door, opening from the largest room in the
house, which had been the hall and which was now the kitchen, led
directly into the farmyard. From the further end of this farm-yard a
magnificent avenue of elms stretched across the home pasture down to
a hedge which crossed it at the bottom. That there had been a road
through the rows of trees,--or, in other words, that there had in
truth been an avenue to the house on that side,--was, of course,
certain. But now there was no vestige of such road, and the front
entrance to Plaistow Hall was by a little path across the garden from
a modern road which had been made to run cruelly near to the house.
Such was Plaistow Hall, and such was its mistress. Of the master, the
reader, I hope, already knows so much as to need no further
description.

As Belton drove himself home from the railway station late on that
August night, he made up his mind that he would tell his sister all
his story about Clara Amedroz. She had ever wished that he should
marry, and now he had made his attempt. Little as had been her
opportunity of learning the ways of men and women from experience in
society, she had always seemed to him to know exactly what every one
should do in every position of life. And she would be tender with
him, giving him comfort even if she could not give him hope. Moreover
Mary might be trusted with his secret; for Belton felt, as men always
do feel, a great repugnance to have it supposed that his suit to a
woman had been rejected. Women, when they have loved in vain, often
almost wish that their misfortune should be known. They love to
talk about their wounds mystically,--telling their own tales under
feigned names, and extracting something of a bitter sweetness
out of the sadness of their own romance. But a man, when he has
been rejected,--rejected