(_Campbell--"Pleasures of Hope"_)


Although Penny's early history is not concerned with Ardmuirland or its
neighborhood, yet her long residence in the district will serve as an
excuse for its introduction here, apart from the fact of its undoubted
interest. Indeed, any account of Ardmuirland which should ignore so
prominent a figure in its social life would fail to give a perfect
picture of the place; yet but for the circumstances of her youthful
career Penny would never have appeared there at all. Her story, as given
here, is pieced together from knowledge gained at various times in
intimate conversation; in such a form it is more likely to meet with the
reader's appreciation than related in her own words.

Lanedon, in the Midlands, was a humble village enough half a century ago.
It lay low, amid gently swelling green hills, and was shaded by luxuriant
woodlands; out of the beaten track it slept in rustic seclusion,
undisturbed by the events of the outside world, its knowledge of such
things being confined to scraps of information which the local newspaper
might cull from more up-to-date journals.

It had but one street--if a single straggling line of dwellings along a
roadside might be so termed; on one side were cottages, each in its
embowering garden, and on the other ran a clear streamlet, which supplied
all the residents with abundance of fresh water. Besides these
habitations in the village proper, there were others, more pretentious,
though simple enough, in the shape of small farms situated in outlying
districts which claimed to belong to Lanedon parish, whose dwellers
worshiped in the little Norman church.