removed the lodgekeeper at the park-gate. His widow and daughter
(Mrs. Rymer and little Susan) remained in their pretty cottage.
They had been allowed by my lord's kindness to take charge of the
gate.

Out walking, on the morning after my arrival, I was caught in a
shower on my way back to the park, and took shelter in the lodge.

In the bygone days I had respected Mrs. Rymer's husband as a
thoroughly worthy man--but Mrs. Rymer herself was no great
favorite of mine. She had married beneath her, as the phrase is,
and she was a little too conscious of it. A woman with a sharp
eye to her own interests; selfishly discontented with her
position in life, and not very scrupulous in her choice of means
when she had an end in view: that is how I describe Mrs. Rymer.
Her daughter, whom I only remembered as a weakly child,
astonished me when I saw her again after the interval that had
elapsed. The backward flower had bloomed into perfect health.
Susan was now a lovely little modest girl of seventeen--with a
natural delicacy and refinement of manner, which marked her to my
mind as one of Nature's gentlewomen. When I entered the lodge she
was writing at a table in a corner, having some books on it, and
rose to withdraw. I begged that she would proceed with her
employment, and asked if I might know what it was. She answered
me with a blush, and a pretty brightening of her clear blue eyes.
"I am trying, sir, to teach myself French," she said. The weather
showed no signs of improving--I volunteered to help her, and
found her such an attentive and intelligent pupil that I looked
in at the lodge from time to time afterward, and continued my
instructions. The younger men among my uncle's guests set their