'And there is a river,' added the vicar.

'I shall get a stickleback for my aquarium,' cried Nuttie. 'We shall
make some discoveries for the Scientific Society. I shall note down
every individual creature I see! I say! you are sure it is not a sham
waterfall or Temple of Tivoli?'

'It would please the choir boys and G. F. S. girls quite as much, if
not more, in that case,' said Miss Mary; 'but you need not expect that,
Nuttie. Landscape-gardening is gone by.'

'Even with the county people?' said Nuttie.

'By at least half a century,' said Mr. Dutton, 'with all deference to
this young lady's experience.'

'It was out of their own mouths,' cried the girl defiantly. 'That's
all I know about county people, and so I hope it will be.'

'Come in, my dear, you are talking very fast,' interposed Mrs.
Egremont, with some pain in the soft sweet voice, which, if it had been
a little stronger, would have been the best in the choir.

These houses in St. Ambrose's Road were semi-detached. The pair which
the party had reached had their entrances at the angles, with a narrow
gravel path leading by a tiny grass plat to each. One, which was
covered with a rich pall of purple clematis, was the home of Mrs.
Egremont, her aunt, and Nuttie; the other, adorned with a Gloire de
Dijon rose in second bloom, was the abode of Mary Nugent, with her
mother, the widow of a naval captain. Farther on, with adjoining
gardens, was another couple of houses, in one of which lived Mr.
Dutton; in the other lodged the youth, Gerard Godfrey, together with
the partner of the principal medical man. The opposite neighbours were
a master of the Modern School and a scholar. Indeed, the saying of the
vicar, the Rev. Francis Spyers, was, and St. Ambrose's Road was proud
of it, that it was a professional place. Every one had something to do
either with schools or umbrellas, scarcely excepting the doctor and the
solicitor, for the former attended the pupils and the latter supplied
them. Mr. Dutton was a partner in the umbrella factory, and lived, as
the younger folk said, as the old bachelor of the Road. Had he not a
housekeeper, a poodle, and a cat; and was not his house, with lovely
sill boxes full of flowers in the windows, the neatest of the neat; and
did not the tiny conservatory over his dining-room window always
produce the flowers most needed for the altar vases, and likewise
bouquets for the tables of favoured ladies. Why, the very daisies