certain evening in February, towards the end of the month, Mr. and
Mrs. Ambrose and Mr. Juxon came to have tea with Mrs. Goddard. Mr. Juxon
had at first not been regularly invited to these entertainments. They
were perhaps not thought worthy of his grandeur; at all events both the
vicar's wife and Mrs. Goddard had asked him very rarely. But as time went
on and Mr. Juxon's character developed under the eyes of the little
Billingsfield society, it had become apparent to every one that he was a
very simple man, making no pretensions whatever to any superiority on
account of his station. They grew more and more fond of him, and ended by
asking him to their small sociable evenings. On these occasions it
generally occurred that the squire and the vicar fell into conversation
about classical and literary subjects while the two ladies talked of the
little incidents of Billingsfield life, of Tom Judd's wife and of Joe
Staines, the choir boy, who was losing his voice, and of similar topics
of interest in the very small world in which they lived.

The present evening had not been at all a remarkable one so far as the
talk was concerned. The drenching rain, the tendency of the fire to
smoke, the general wetness and condensed depravity of the atmosphere had
affected the spirits of the little party. They were not gay, and they
broke up early. It was not nine o'clock when all had gone, and Mrs.
Goddard and little Eleanor were left alone by the side of their
drawing-room fire. The child sat upon a footstool and leaned her head
against her mother's knee. Mrs. Goddard herself was thoughtful and
sad, without precisely knowing why. She generally looked forward with
pleasure to meeting the Ambroses, but this evening she had been rather
disappointed. The conversation had dragged, and the excellent Mrs.
Ambrose had been more than usually prosy. Nellie had complained of a
headache and leaned wearily against her mother's knee.

"Tell me a story, mamma--won't you? Like the ones you used to tell me
when I was quite a little girl."

"Dear child," said her mother, who was not thinking of story-telling, "I
am afraid I have forgotten all the ones I ever knew. Besides, darling, it
is time for you to go to bed."

"I don't want to go to bed, mamma. It is such a horrid night. The wind
keeps me awake."

"You will not sleep at all if I tell you a story," objected Mrs. Goddard.

"Mr. Juxon tells me such nice stories," said Nellie, reproachfully.

"W