e
wealthier families who composed what a province calls its society; and
the gloom which that event cast over the little village round the kingly
mansion was increased when Waife and his grandchild left.

For the last three years, emboldened by Lady Montfort's protection,
and the conviction that he was no longer pursued or spied, the old
man relaxed his earlier reserved and secluded habits. Constitutionally
sociable, he had made acquaintance with his humbler neighbours; lounged
by their cottage palings in his rambles down the lanes; diverted their
children with Sir Isaac's tricks, or regaled them with nuts and apples
from his little orchard; giving to the more diligent labourers many
a valuable hint how to eke out the daily wage with garden produce, or
bees, or poultry; doctored farmer's cows; and even won the heart of the
stud-groom by a mysterious sedative ball, which had reduced to serene
docility a highly nervous and hitherto unmanageable four-year-old.
Sophy had been no less popular. No one grudged her the favour of Lady
Montfort--no one wondered at it. They were loved and honoured. Perhaps
the happiest years Waife had known since his young wife left the earth
were passed in the hamlet which he fancied her shade haunted; for was
it not there--there, in that cottage--there, in sight of those green
osiers, that her first modest virgin replies to his letters of love and
hope that soothed his confinement and animated him--till then little
fond of sedentary toils--to the very industry which, learned in sport,
now gave subsistence, and secured a home. To that home persecution had
not come--gossip had not pryed into its calm seclusion--even chance,
when threatening disclosure, had seemed to pass by innocuous. For
once--a year or so before he left--an incident had occurred which
alarmed him at the time, but led to no annoying results. The banks of
the great sheet of water in Montfort Park were occasionally made the
scene of rural picnics by the families of neighbouring farmers or
tradesmen. One day Waife, while carelessly fashioning his baskets on his
favourite spot, was recognised, on the opposite margin, by a party of
such holiday-makers to whom he himself had paid no attention. He was
told the next day by the landlady of the village inn, the main chimney
of which he had undertaken to cure of smoking, that a "lady" in the
picnic symposium of the day before had asked many questions about him
and his grandchild, and had se