passed the north front door as regularly as ever, they seldom met a
Constantine. Only one was there to be met, and she had no zest for
outings before noon.

The long, low front of the Great House, as it was called by the
parish, stretching from end to end of the terrace, was in darkness
as the vicar slackened his pace before it, and only the distant fall
of water disturbed the stillness of the manorial precincts.

On gaining admittance he found Lady Constantine waiting to receive
him. She wore a heavy dress of velvet and lace, and being the only
person in the spacious apartment she looked small and isolated. In
her left hand she held a letter and a couple of at-home cards. The
soft dark eyes which she raised to him as he entered--large, and
melancholy by circumstance far more than by quality--were the
natural indices of a warm and affectionate, perhaps slightly
voluptuous temperament, languishing for want of something to do,
cherish, or suffer for.

Mr. Torkingham seated himself. His boots, which had seemed elegant
in the farm-house, appeared rather clumsy here, and his coat, that
was a model of tailoring when he stood amid the choir, now exhibited
decidedly strained relations with his limbs. Three years had passed
since his induction to the living of Welland, but he had never as
yet found means to establish that reciprocity with Lady Constantine
which usually grows up, in the course of time, between parsonage and
manor-house,--unless, indeed, either side should surprise the other
by showing respectively a weakness for awkward modern ideas on
landownership, or on church formulas, which had not been the case
here. The present meeting, however, seemed likely to initiate such