“And so Valentine is gone!  Has he written from Melcombe to you, John?”

“No,” John answered, and added, after another short silence, “I feel the loss of his company; it leaves me the more alone.”

Then, to her surprise, he began at once to speak of this much-loved old man, and related two or three little evidences of his kindness and charity that she liked to hear, and that it evidently was a relief to him to tell.  She was just the kind of woman unconsciously to draw forth confidences, and to reward them.  Something poignant in his feeling was rather set forth than concealed by his sober, self-restrained ways and quiet words; it suited Emily, and she allowed herself to speak with that tender reverence of the dead which came very well from her, since she had loved him living so well.  She was rather eloquent when her feelings were touched, and then she had a sweet and penetrative voice.  John liked to hear her; he recalled her words when he had parted with her at her own door, and felt that no one else had said anything of his father that was half so much to his mind.  It was nearly four weeks after this that Emily fully confessed to herself what had occurred.

The dinner, after John Mortimer withdrew that day and Emily made to herself this confession, was happily relieved by the company of three or four neighbours, otherwise the hostess might have been made to feel very plainly that she had displeased her guest.  But the next morning Justina, having had time to consider that Emily must on no account be annoyed, came down all serenity and kindliness.  She was so attentive to the lame old aunt, and though the poor lady, being rather in pain, was decidedly snappish, she did not betray any feeling of disapproval.

“Ay,” said Miss Christie to herself when the two ladies had set off on their short walk, “yon’s not so straightforward and simple as I once thought her.  Only give her a chance, and as sure as death she’ll get hold of John, after all.”

Emily and Justina went across the fields and came to John’s garden, over the wooden bridge that spanned the brook.

The sunny sloping garden was full of spring flowers.  Vines, not yet in leaf, were trained all over the back of the house, clematis and jasmine, climbing up them and over them, were pouring themselves down again in great twisted strands; windows peeped out of ivy, and the old red-tiled roof, warm and mossy, looked homely and comfortable.  A certain air of old-fashioned, easy comfort pervaded the whole place; large bay windows, with little roofs of their own, came boldly forth, and commanded a good view of other windows—­ivied windows that retired unaccountably.  There were no right lines.  Casements at one end of the house showed in three tiers, at the other there were but two.  The only thing that was perfectly at ease about itself, and quite clear that it ought to be seen, was the roof.  You could not possibly make a “stuck-up” house, or a smart villa, or a modern family house of one that had a roof like that.  The late Mrs. Mortimer had wished it could be taken away.  She would have liked the house to be higher and the roof lower.  John, on the other hand, delighted in his roof, and also in his stables, the other remarkable feature of the place.