"I glory in it," she was thinking, "and take not one word of it back."
She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully and turned away.

"What time will they be coming, Helen?" she asked, for she had made up
her mind. She would think no more of this man, and remember no more of
his speeches. She would wipe him out of her memory. Life for her would
begin again here in Starden, and the past should hold nothing, nothing,
nothing!




CHAPTER XVI

ELLICE


Buddesby, in the Parish of Little Langbourne, was a small place compared
with Starden Hall. Buddesby claimed to be nothing more than a farmhouse
of a rather exalted type. For generations the Everards had been
gentlemen farmers, farming their own land and doing exceedingly badly by
it.

Matthew, late owner of Buddesby, had taken up French gardening on a
large scale, and had squandered a great part of his capital on glass
cloches, fragments of which were likely to litter Buddesby for many a
year to come.

John, his son, had turned his back on intensive culture and had gone
back to the old family failing of hops. The Everard family had probably