present chattels would make a great difference; whereat my father,
looking at the effects of more than twenty years of London blacks,
gave a little whistle, for she was always the economical one of the
pair.

Emily, with glowing cheeks and eager eyes, entreated to know whether
it was Gothic, and had a cloister! Papa nipped her hopes of a
cloister, but there were Gothic windows and doorway, and a bit of
ruin in the garden, a fragment of the old chapel.

My father could not resign his office without notice, and, besides,
he wished Miss Selby to have leisure for leaving her home of many
years; after which there would be a few needful repairs. The delay
was not a great grievance to any of us except little Martyn. We
were much more Cockney than almost any one is in these days of
railways. We were unusually devoid of kindred on both sides, my
father's holidays were short, I was not a very movable commodity,
and economy forbade long journeys, so that we had never gone farther
than Ramsgate, where we claimed a certain lodging-house as a sort of
right every summer.

Real country was as much unknown to us as the backwoods. My father
alone had been born and bred to village life and habits, for my
mother had spent her youth in a succession of seaport towns,
frequented by men-of-war. We heard, too, that Chantry House was
very secluded, with only a few cottages near at hand--a mile and a
half from the church and village of Earlscombe, three from the tiny
country town of Wattlesea, four from the place where the coach
passed, connecting it with the civilisation of Bath and Bristol,
from each of which places it was about half a day's distance,