The mild March day felt milder, the rooks cawed more cheerfully, and the spring flowers shone out more fearlessly around us when we had passed through the white gates of Woodcote—­a favoured spot gently declining to the sunniest quarter, and sheltered from the north and north-east by barricades of elm-woods.  The tiny domain was exquisitely ordered, as I love to see everything which appertains to women; and within the low white house, furnished after the simple and stiff fashion of a past generation, reigned the same dainty neatness, the same sunny cheerfulness, the native atmosphere of its chatelaine Mrs. Mostyn—­a white-haired old lady long past seventy, with the bloom of youth on her cheek, its vivacity in her step, and its sparkle in her eyes.

Hardly were the first greetings exchanged when the children opened the ball of conversation by inquiring eagerly when tea would be ready.

“How can you be so greedy?” said their mother.  “Why, you have only just finished your dinner.”

“We dined at half-past one, and it is nearly half-past three.”

“Poor darlings!” cried Mrs. Mostyn, regarding them with the enraptured gaze of the true child-lover; “their drive has made them hungry; and we cannot have tea very well before half-past four, because some old women from the village have come up to have tea, and the servants are busy attending to them.  But I can tell you what you could do, dears.  You know the way to the dairy; one of the maids is sure to be there; tell her to give you some cream.  You will like that, won’t you?  Yes, you can go out by this door.”

“And remember to—­”

Lady Atherley’s exhortation remained unfinished, her sons having darted through the door-window like arrows from the bow.

“Since Miss Jones has been gone for her holiday the children are quite unmanageable,” she observed.

“Oh, it is such a good sign!” cried Mrs. Mostyn heartily; “it shows they are so thoroughly well.  Mr. Lyndsay, why have you chosen that uncomfortable chair?  Come and sit over beside me, if you are not afraid of the fire.  And now, Jane, my love, tell me how you are getting on at Weald.”

Then followed a long catalogue of accidents and disappointments, of faithlessness and incapacity, to which Mrs. Mostyn supplied a running commentary of interjections sympathetic and consoling.  There were, moreover, many changes for the worse since Sir Marmaduke had resided there:  the shooting and the fishing had been alike neglected; the farmers were impoverished; the old places had changed hands.

“And a good many quite new people have come to live in small houses round Weald,” said Lady Atherley.  “They have left cards on us.  Do you know what they are like?”

“Quite ladies and gentlemen, I believe, and nice enough as long as you don’t get to know them too intimately; but they are always quarrelling.”

“About what?”

“About everything; but especially about church matters—­decorations and anthems and other rubbish.  What they want is less of the church and more of the Bible.”