The garden which was to be the scene of study was ten minutes’ walk away from the house.  To reach it, they had to pass along a road which traversed the cattle market, a vast area of pens, filled on one day in each week with multitudes of oxen, sheep, and swine.  Beyond the market, and in the shadow of the railway viaduct previously referred to, lay three or four acres of ground divided up by hedges into small gardens, leased by people who had an ambition to grow their own potatoes and cabbages, but had no plot attached to their houses.  Jessie opened a rough wooden door, made fast by a padlock, and, closing it again behind them, led the way along a narrow path between high hedges, a second wooden door was reached, which opened into the garden itself.  This was laid out with an eye less to beauty than to usefulness.  In the centre was a patch of grass, lying between two pear trees; the rest of the ground was planted with the various requisites of the kitchen, and in one corner was a well.  In the tool house were kept several Windsor chairs; two of these were now brought forth and placed on the grass between the pear trees.  But Jessie was not disposed to apply herself on the instant to the books which she had brought in a satchel; her first occupation was to hunt for the ripest gooseberries and currants, and to try her teeth in several pears which she knocked down with the handle of a rake.  When at length she seated herself, her tongue began to have its way.

‘How I do dislike that Mr. Dagworthy!’ she said, with transparent affectation.  ’I wonder what he came for this morning.  He said he wanted father’s address, but I know that was only an excuse.  He hasn’t been to see us for months.  It was like his impudence to ever come at all, after the way he behaved when he married that stuck-up Miss Hanmer.’

‘Will you tell me how many of these French exercises you have written?’ Emily asked as soon as a pause gave her the opportunity.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ was the answer; ’about ten, I think.  Do you know, I really believe he thinks himself good-looking?  And he’s as plain as he can be.  Don’t you think so, Emily?’

‘I really have no opinion.’

’It was strange he should come this morning.  It was only yesterday I met him over there by the mill,’—­Dagworthy’s mill stood at one end of the cattle-market,—­’and you can’t think the impudent way he talked.  And, oh, how did he know that you were going to give me lessons?’

‘I can’t say.’

’Well, he did know, somehow; I was astonished.  Perhaps your father told him?’

‘That is not very likely.’

’Well, he knew.  I wonder who he’ll marry next.  You may depend upon it he did treat his wife badly; everybody said so.  If he were to propose to me, I should answer like that woman did to Henry the Eighth, you know.’  She tittered.  ’I can’t fancy marrying a man who’s been married before, could you?  I said that to Mrs. Tichborne one day, at Bridlington, and what do you think she answered?  Oh, she said, they’re the best husbands.  Only a good-natured fool marries a second time.’