st intimate friend was old Mrs. MacHugh,
the widow of the last dean but two, who could not have stood higher
had she been the widow of the last bishop. And then, although Miss
Stanbury was intimate with the Frenches of Heavitree, with the
Wrights of Northernhay, with the Apjohns of Helion Villa,--a really
magnificent house, two miles out of the city on the Crediton
Road, and with the Crumbies of Cronstadt House, Saint Ide's,--who
would have been county people, if living in the country made the
difference;--although she was intimate with all these families,
her manner to them was not the same, nor was it expected to be the
same, as with those of her own acknowledged set. These things are
understood in Exeter so well!

Miss Stanbury belonged to the county set, but she lived in a large
brick house, standing in the Close, almost behind the Cathedral.
Indeed it was so close to the eastern end of the edifice that a
carriage could not be brought quite up to her door. It was a large
brick house, very old, with a door in the middle, and five steps
ascending to it between high iron rails. On each side of the door
there were two windows on the ground floor, and above that there
were three tiers of five windows each, and the house was double
throughout, having as many windows looking out behind into a gloomy
courtyard. But the glory of the house consisted in this, that there
was a garden attached to it, a garden with very high walls, over
which the boughs of trees might be seen, giving to the otherwise
gloomy abode a touch of freshness in the summer, and a look of space
in the winter, which no doubt added something to the reputation even
of Miss Stanbury. The fact,--for it was a fact,--that there was
no gloomier or less attractive spot in the whole city than Miss
Stanbury's garden, when seen inside, did not militate against this
advantage. There were but half-a-dozen trees, and a few square yards
of grass that was never green, and a damp ungravelled path on which
no one ever walked. Seen from the inside the garden was not much;
but, from the outside, it gave a distinct character to the house, and
produced an unexpressed acknowledgment that the owner of it ought to
belong to the county set.

The house and all that was in it belonged to Miss Stanbury herself,
as did also many other houses in the neighbourhood. She was the owner
of the "Cock and Bottle," a very decent second class inn on the other
side of the Close, an inn supposed