bedroom at the parsonage. Any intimate friend of Miss Le
Smyrger's might be as fortunate, for she was also so provided at Oxney
Colne, by which name her house was known. But Miss Le Smyrger was not
given to extensive hospitality, and it was only to those who were bound
to her, either by ties of blood or of very old friendship, that she
delighted to open her doors. As her old friends were very few in number,
as those few lived at a distance, and as her nearest relations were
higher in the world than she was, and were said by herself to look down
upon her, the visits made to Oxney Colne were few and far between.

But now, at the period of which I am writing, such a visit was about to
be made. Miss Le Smyrger had a younger sister who had inherited a
property in the parish of Oxney Colne equal to that of the lady who
lived there; but this younger sister had inherited beauty also, and she
therefore, in early life, had found sundry lovers, one of whom became
her husband. She had married a man even then well to do in the world,
but now rich and almost mighty; a Member of Parliament, a Lord of this
and that board, a man who had a house in Eaton Square, and a park in the
north of England; and in this way her course of life had been very much
divided from that of our Miss Le Smyrger. But the Lord of the Government
board had been blessed with various children, and perhaps it was now
thought expedient to look after Aunt Penelope's Devonshire acres. Aunt
Penelope was empowered to leave them to whom she pleased; and though it
was thought in Eaton Square that she must, as a matter of course, leave
them to one of the family, nevertheless a little cousinly intercourse
might make the thing more certain. I will not say that this was the sole
cause for such a visit, but in these days a visit was to be made by
Captain Broughton to his aunt. Now Captain John Broughton was the second
son of Alfonso Broughton, of Clapham Park and Eaton Square, Member of
Parliament, and Lord of the aforesaid Government Board.

And what do you mean to do with him? Patience Woolsworthy asked of Miss
Le Smyrger when that lady walked over from the Colne to say that her
nephew John was to arrive on the following morning.

'Do with him? Why, I shall bring him over here to talk to your father.'

'He'll be too fashionable for that, and papa won't trouble his head
about him if he finds that he doesn't care for Dartmoor.'

'Then he may fall in love with you, my dear.'