‘I shan’t be here to trouble you long that I shan’t, Miss Clara,’ said the old woman.

‘I am sure Captain Aylmer would be very sorry to lose you,’ replied Clara, speaking loud, and close to the poor woman’s ear, for she was deaf.

’I never looked to live after she was gone, Miss Clara never.  No more I didn’t.  Deary deary!  And I suppose you’ll be living at the big house now; won’t ye?’

‘The big house belongs to Captain Aylmer, Mrs Partridge.’  She was driven to bawl out her words, and by no means liked the task.  Then Captain Aylmer said something, but his speech was altogether lost.

’Oh it belongs to the captain, do it?  They told me that was the way of the will; but I suppose it’s all one.’

‘Yes; it’s all one,’ said Captain Aylmer, gaily.

‘It’s not exactly all one, as you call it,’ said Clara, attempting to laugh, but still shouting at the top of her voice.

’Ah I don’t understand; but I hope you’ll both live there together and I hope you’ll be as good to the poor as she that is gone.  Well, well; I didn’t ever think that I should be still here, while she is lying under the stones up in the old church!’

Captain Aylmer had determined that he would ask his question on the way back from the farm, and now resolved that he might as well begin with some allusion to Mrs Partridge’s words about the house.  The afternoon was bright and cold, and the lane down to the farmhouse had been dried by the wind, so that the day was pleasant for walking.  ’We might as well go on to the bridge,’ he said, as they left the farmyard.  ’I always think that Perivale church looks better from Creevy bridge than any other point.’  Perivale church stood high in the centre of the town, on an eminence, and was graced with a spire which was declared by the Perivalians to be preferable to that of Salisbury in proportion, though it was acknowledged to be somewhat inferior to it in height.  The little river Creevy, which ran through a portion of the suburbs of the town, and which, as there seen, was hardly more than a ditch, then sloped away behind Creevy Grange, as the farm of Mrs Partridge was called, and was crossed by a small wooden bridge, from which there was a view, not only of the church, but of all that side of the hill on which Mrs Winterfield’s large brick house stood conspicuously.

So they walked down to Creevy bridge, and, when there, stood leaning on the parapet and looking back upon the town.

’How well I know every house and spot in the place as I see them from here,’ he said.

’A good many of the houses are your own or will be some day; and therefore you should know them.’

’I remember, when I used to be here as a boy fishing, I always thought Aunt Winterfield’s house was the biggest house in the county.’

‘It can’t be nearly so large as your father’s house in Yorkshire.’

’No; certainly it is not.  Aylmer Park is a large place; but the house does not stretch itself out so wide as that; nor does it stand on the side of a hill so as to show out its proportions with so much ostentation.  The coach-house and the stables, and the old brewhouse, seem to come half way down the hill.  And when I was a boy I had much more respect for my aunt’s red-brick house in Perivale than I had for Aylmer Park.’