opened on the square yard or quadrangle towards the road, formerly
a regular carriage entrance, though the middle of the area was now
made use of for stacking timber, fagots, bundles, and other
products of the wood. It was divided from the lane by a lichen-
coated wall, in which hung a pair of gates, flanked by piers out
of the perpendicular, with a round white ball on the top of each.

The building on the left of the enclosure was a long-backed
erection, now used for spar-making, sawing, crib-framing, and
copse-ware manufacture in general. Opposite were the wagon-sheds
where Marty had deposited her spars.

Here Winterborne had remained after the girl's abrupt departure,
to see that the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne
was connected with the Melbury family in various ways. In
addition to the sentimental relationship which arose from his
father having been the first Mrs. Melbury's lover, Winterborne's
aunt had married and emigrated with the brother of the timber-
merchant many years before--an alliance that was sufficient to
place Winterborne, though the poorer, on a footing of social
intimacy with the Melburys. As in most villages so secluded as
this, intermarriages were of Hapsburgian frequency among the
inhabitants, and there were hardly two houses in Little Hintock
unrelated by some matrimonial tie or other.

For this reason a curious kind of partnership existed between
Melbury and the younger man--a partnership based upon an unwritten
code, by which each acted in the way he thought fair towards the
other, on a give-and-take principle. Melbury, with his timber and
copse-ware business, found that the weight of his labor came in