He was not left long in doubt.  The arrangements were easily concluded, for the cottage belonged to the estate in Chancery and the lawyer in charge was very busy with other matters.  The guarantee afforded by the vicar’s personal application, together with the payment of a year’s rent in advance so far facilitated matters that four days after she had written to Mr. Ambrose the latter informed Mrs. Goddard that she was at 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, and if she talked a little too much sometimes it was because she felt embarrassed;