“She looks very well, I am sure,” answered Mrs. Ambrose rather bluntly, looking at the child’s clear complexion and bright eyes.  “And have you always lived in town until now, Mrs. Goddard?” she asked.

“Oh no, not always, but most of the year, perhaps.  Indeed I think so.”  Mrs. Goddard felt nervous before the searching glance of the elder woman.  Mrs. Ambrose concluded that she was not absolutely straightforward.

“Do you think you can make the cottage comfortable?” asked the vicar’s wife, seeing that the conversation languished.

“Oh, I think so,” answered her visitor, glad to change the subject, and suddenly becoming very voluble as she had previously been very shy.  “It is really a charming little place.  Of course it is not very large, but as we have not got very many belongings that is all the better; and the garden is small but extremely pretty and wild, and the kitchen is very convenient; really I quite wonder how the people who built it could have made it all so comfortable.  You see there are one—­two—­the pantry, the kitchen and two rooms on the ground floor and plenty of room upstairs for everybody, and as for the sun! it streams into all the windows at once from morning till night.  And such a pretty view, too, of that old gate opposite—­where does it lead to, Mrs. Ambrose?  It is so very pretty.”

“It leads to the park and the Hall,” answered Mrs. Ambrose.

“Oh—­” Mrs. Goddard’s tone changed.  “But nobody lives there?” she asked suddenly.

“Oh no—­it is in Chancery, you know.”

“What—­what is that, exactly?” asked Mrs. Goddard, timidly.  “Is there a young heir waiting to grow up—­I mean waiting to take possession?”

“No.  There is a suit about it.  It has been going on for forty years my husband says, and they cannot decide to whom it belongs.”

“I see,” answered Mrs. Goddard.  “I suppose they will never decide now.”

“Probably not for some time.”

“It must be a very pretty place.  Can one go in, do you think?  I am so fond of trees—­what a beautiful garden you have yourself, Mrs. Ambrose.”

“Would you like to see it?” asked the vicar’s wife, anxious to bring the visit to a conclusion.

“Oh, thank you—­of all things!” exclaimed Mrs. Goddard.  “Would not you like to run about the garden, Nellie?”

The little girl nodded slowly and stared at Mrs. Ambrose.

“My husband is a very good gardener,” said the latter, leading the way out to the hall.  “And so was John Short, but he has left us, you know.”

“Who was John Short?” asked Mrs. Goddard rather absently, as she watched Mrs. Ambrose who was wrapping herself in a huge blue waterproof cloak and tying a sort of worsted hood over her head.

“He was one of the boys Mr. Ambrose prepared for college—­such a good fellow.  You may have seen him when you came last June, Mrs. Goddard?”

“Had he very bright blue eyes—­a nice face?”