ardeners and their wives. To be
lodge-keeper to the Park was as great a guarantee of respectability in
Norton as to be vicar of the parish church itself. Only middle-aged,
married, teetotal, childless churchmen could apply for the posts, and
among their scant ranks the most searching inquiries were instituted
before an appointment was finally arranged. It is safe to affirm that
no working couples on earth were more clean, industrious, and alive to
their duty towards their betters, than the occupants of the North and
South Lodges of Norton Park!

All day long the two husbands mowed grass, clipped hedges, and swept up
gravel paths; all day long the wives scrubbed and dusted their
immaculate little houses, keeping a weather-eye on the door to see who
passed to and fro. Their duty it was to pounce out on any stranger who
dared attempt to force an entrance through the hallowed portals, and
send them back discomfited.

"You can't come this way, madam! This road is private!"

"Can't I just walk straight through on the path? It is so much nearer
than going all the way round!"

"The park is private, madam; there is no thoroughfare."

Occasionally some child of sin would endeavour to prevaricate.

"I wish to pay a call!"

"Which house did you wish to go to, madam?"

"Er--Buona Vista!"

"Buona Vistas is away from home. They won't be back till the end of the
month."

Foiled in her attempts the miscreant would have to retrace her steps, or
make her way round by the narrow lane by means of which the tradesmen
made their way to the back-doors of these secluded dwellings.

Perhaps the most unpromisingly decorous house in the Park was christened
"The Nook," with that appalling lack of humour which is nowhere
portrayed more strikingly than in the naming of suburban residences. It
stood fair and square in the middle of the crescent; and from garret to
cellar there was not a nooky corner on which the eye could light. Two
drawing-room windows flanked the front door on the left; two dining-room
windows on the right. There was not even a gable or a dormer to break
the square solidity of the whole. Fourteen windows in all, each
chastely shrouded in Nottingham lace curtains, looped back by yellow
silk bands, fastened, to a fraction of an inch, at the same height from
the sill, while Aspidistra plants, mounted on small tables, were
artfully placed so as to fill up the space necessarily left in the
centre. They were hand