neyfied. There," as the horses
tried to stop at a lodge leading to a prettily built house, "that's
Timber End, the crack place here, where Bessie has always said it was
her ambition to live."

"How far is it from the Parsonage?"

"Four miles."

Which was a comfort to Rachel, not that she wished to be distant from
Bessie, but the population appalled her imagination.

"Bishopsworthy is happily defended by a Dukery," explained Alick, as
coming to the end of the villas they passed woods and fields, a bit of
heathy common, and a scattering of cottages. Labourers going home from
work looked up, and as their eyes met Alick's there was a mutual smile
and touch of the hat. He evidently felt himself coming home. The trees
of a park were beginning to rise in front, when the carriage turned
suddenly down a sharp steep hill; the right side of the road bounded by
a park paling; the left, by cottages, reached by picturesque flights
of brick stairs, then came a garden wall, and a halt. Alick called out,
"Thanks," and "we will get out here," adding, "They will take in the
goods the back way. I don't like careering into the churchyard."

Rachel, alighting, saw that the lane proceeded downwards to a river
crossed by a wooden bridge, with an expanse of meadows beyond. To her
left was a stable-yard, and below it a white gate and white railings
enclosing a graveyard, with a very beautiful church standing behind a
mushroom yew-tree. The upper boundary of the churchyard was the clipped
yew hedge of the rectory garden, whose front entrance was through
the churchyard. There was a lovely cool tranquillity of aspect as the
shadows lay sleeping on the grass; and Rachel could have stood and
gazed, but Alick opened the gate, and there was a movement at the seat
that enclosed the gnarled trunk of the yew tree. A couple of village
lads touched their caps and departed the opposite way, a white setter
dog bounded forward, and, closely attended by a still snowier cat, a
gentleman came to meet them, so fearlessly treading the pathway between
the graves, and so youthful in figure, that it was only the "Well,
uncle, here she is," and, "Alick, my dear boy," that convinced her that
this was indeed Mr. Clare. The next moment he had taken her hand, kissed
her brow, and spoken a few words of fatherly blessing, then, while
Alick exchanged greetings with the cat and dog, he led her to the arched
yew-tree entrance to his garden, up two stone steps, along a flag