hey were well acquainted with the Eldons, from the first
caused them to be looked up to. It was conjectured, and soon confirmed
by Mrs. Waltham's own admissions, that they had known a larger way of
living than that to which they adapted themselves in the little house on
the side of Stanbury Hill, whence they looked over the village street.
Mr. Waltham had, in fact, been a junior partner in a Belwick firm,
which came to grief. He saved enough out of the wreck to: make a modest
competency for his family, and would doubtless in time have retrieved
his fortune, but death was beforehand with him. His wife, in the second
year of her widowhood, came with her daughter Adela to Wanley; her
son Alfred had gone to commercial work in Belwick. Mrs. Waltham was a
prudent woman, and tenacious of ideas which recommended themselves to
her practical instincts; such an idea had much to do with her settlement
in the remote village, which she would not have chosen for her abode out
of love of its old-world quietness. But at the Manor was Hubert Eldon.
Hubert was four years older than Adela. He had no fortune of his own,
but it was tolerably certain that some day he would be enormously rich,
and there was small likelihood that he would marry till that expected
change in his position came about.

On the afternoon of a certain Good Friday, Mrs. Waltham sat at her open
window, enjoying the air and busy with many thoughts, among other things
wondering who was likely to drop in for a cup of tea. It was a late
Easter, and warm spring weather had already clothed the valley with
greenness; to-day the sun was almost hot, and the west wind brought
many a sweet odour from gardens near and far. From her sitting-room Mrs.
Waltham had the best view to be obtained from any house in Wanley; she
looked, as I have said, right over the village street, and on either
hand the valley spread before her a charming prospect. Opposite was the
wooded slope, freshening now with exquisite shades of new-born
leafage; looking north, she saw fruit-gardens, making tender harmonies;
southwards spread verdure and tillage. Yet something there was which
disturbed the otherwise perfect unity of the scene, an unaccustomed
trouble to the eye. In the very midst of the vale, perhaps a quarter
of a mile to the south of the village, one saw what looked like the
beginning of some engineering enterprise--a great throwing-up of earth,
and the commencement of a roadway on which metal rails