Redicote, where there was a second church. Belton Cottage, which was
occupied by Colonel Askerton and Mrs Askerton, was on the Amedroz
property, and had been hired some two years since by the Colonel, who
was then a stranger in the country and altogether unknown to the Belton
people. But he had come there for shooting, and therefore his coming
had been understood. Even as long ago as two years since, there had
been neither use nor propriety in keeping the shooting for the squire's
son, and it had been let with the cottage to Colonel Askerton. So
Colonel Askerton had come there with his wife, and no one in the
neighbourhood had known anything about them. Mr Amedroz, with his
daughter, had called upon them, and gradually there had grown up an
intimacy between Clara and Mrs Askerton. There was an opening from the
garden of Belton Cottage into the park, so that familiar intercourse
was easy, and Mrs Askerton was a woman who knew well how to make
herself pleasant to such another woman as Miss Amedroz.

The reader may as well know at ones that rumours prejudicial to the
Askertons reached Belton before they had been established there for six
months. At Taunton, which was twenty miles distant, these rumours were
very rife, and there were people there who knew with accuracy though
probably without a grain of truth in their accuracy every detail in the
history of Mrs Askerton's life. And something, too, reached Clara's
ears something from old Mr Wright, the rector, who loved scandal, and
was very ill-natured. 'A very nice woman,' the rector had said; 'but
she does not seem to have any belongings in particular.' 'She has got a
husband,' Clara had replied with some little indignation, for she had
never loved Mr Wright. 'Yes; I suppose she has got a husband.' Then
Clara had, in her own judgment, accused the rector of lying,
evil-speaking, and slandering, and had increased the measure of her
cordiality to Mrs Askerton. But something more she had heard on the