t
liberty to take possession. The vicar suggested that the Billingsfield
carrier, who drove his cart to London once a week, could bring her
furniture down in two trips and save her a considerable expense; Mrs.
Goddard accepted this advice and in the course of a fortnight was
installed with all her goods in the cottage. Having completed her
arrangements at last, she came to call upon the vicar's wife.

Mrs. Goddard had not changed since she had first visited Billingsfield,
five months earlier, though little Eleanor had grown taller and was if
possible prettier than ever. Something of the character of the lady in
black may have been gathered from the style of her letter to Mr. Ambrose;
that communication had impressed the vicar's wife unfavourably and had
drawn from her husband a somewhat compassionate remark about the bad
English it contained. Nevertheless when Mrs. Goddard came to live in
Billingsfield the Ambroses soon discovered that she was a very
well-educated woman, that she appeared to have read much and to have read
intelligently, and that she was on the whole decidedly interesting. It
was long, however, before Mrs. Ambrose entirely conquered a certain
antipathy she felt for her, and which she explained after her own
fashion. Mrs. Goddard was not a dissenter and she was not a Romanist; on
the contrary she appeared to be a very good churchwoman. She paid her
bills regularly and never gave anybody any trouble. She visited the
vicarage at stated intervals, and the vicarage graciously returned her
visits. The vicar himself even went to the cottage more often than Mrs.
Ambrose thought strictly necessary, for the vicar was strongly prejudiced
in her favour. But Mrs. Ambrose did not share that prejudice. Mrs.
Goddard, she said, was too effusive, talked too much about herself and
her troubles, did not look thoroughly straightforward, probably had
foreign blood. Ay, there was the rub--Mrs. Ambrose suspected that Mrs.
Goddard was not quite English. If she was not, why did she not say so,
and be done with it?

Mrs. Goddard was English, nevertheless, and would have been very much
surprised could she have guessed the secret cause of the slight coldness
she sometimes observed in the manner of the clergyman's wife towards her.
She herself, poor thing, believed it was because she was in trouble, and
considering the nature of the disaster which had befallen her, she was
not surprised. She was rather a weak woman, rather timid, a