The vicar "liked the smell of the wood."
Veronica "thought the bright flame so
much prettier than the nasty coal-gas, that
flared, and glared, and scorched one."

The vicar of Shipley-in-the-Wold sat
alone by his hearth. He was depressed,
and a little out of humour. His guest
had left him, and the vicar missed his
evening chat.

Maud was still at Lowater, and Veronica
had gone to pay a long-promised visit to
old Mrs. Plew, the surgeon's mother.

"Mrs. Plew has asked me to drink tea
with her so often," Veronica had said. "I
ought to go. I will walk over there after the
afternoon practice in the school-room."

The vicar had made no opposition at the
time. But now that he was alone, he began
to think himself hardly used. Veronica
could stay at home, evening after evening,
while there was a stranger in the house.
But she cared nothing for her father's
society. She never considered that he
might feel solitary. She had declared
herself to be moped to death, and so had gone
out to seek a change. Selfish, selfish! How
selfish and inconsiderate people were!

Splash, splash, splash, fell the drops
from the slates of the roof. On the garden
the spring rain was falling, fine and close.
Now and again came the west wind, flying
fast, and with a swoop of his wings
scattered the trembling drops, and dashed
them against the window-panes.

Each time that the vicar heard the rain
pattering against the glass he looked up
from his book and moved uneasily in his
chair. Sometimes he stirred the fire.
Sometimes he moved his reading lamp.
Once he rose, went to the window, drew
back the curtains and put his face close
to the glass. There was not much to be
seen. As his eyes got used to the darkness
he could distinguish the outline of the
old yew-tree, solidly black, against the
vague, shadow-like clouds. A wet stormy
night! How would Veronica get home?
Joe Dowsett had gone to Shipley Magna
to buy corn, or the vicar would have made
him take a mackintosh and waterproof
shoes to his young mistress. He could not
send either of the women out in this
weather. Then he sighed, and went back to
his chair and his book.

In the kitchen old Joanna was knitting
a coarse grey stocking, feeling rather
than seeing her work, and Catherine, with
the solitary candle drawn close to her, was
trimming a smart cap.

"How solitary like the house seems
now!" exclaimed the latter, after having
plied her needle for some time in silence.

"Quiet," responded Joanna, briefly.

"Oh, quiet enough! But for that matter
it warn't never noisy. I like a little life
in a place. Somehow, Sir John being
here, and Paul, livened us up a bit."

"You've a queer notion of liveliness,
Catherine. It was more like deadliness
a deal for one while! And very nigh being
deadliness too." The old woman nodded
her head in grim satisfaction at her joke.

"Well, but there was something going
on all the time. Not but what Paul gave
us little enough of his company: and as
for Sir John, I didn't hardly set eyes on
him from week's end to week's end."

"No great loss neither!"

"Laws, Joanna, why are you so set agin'
Sir John? I'm sure he was quite a
handsome-looking gentleman for his time of life.
And behaved handsome too, when he went
away."

"My liking ain't to be bought with
guineas. Nor yet with five-pound notes."

"Well," observed Catherine, reflectively,
"I think guineas helps liking. I hate
stingy folks."

"You're young and foolish. It's a pity
as wisdom and judgment mostly comes
when folks hasn't no more need on 'em."

There was another and a longer silence,
during which the wind rose higher, and
the rain rattled against the casement.

"We shall have Miss Maud back
tomorrow, I suppose," said Catherine. "She's
a nice young lady: only a bit high. I don't
mean high exactly, neither: but—she has
a kind of way of keeping you at a distance
somehow. Miss Veronica's more to my
taste."

"H'm!" grunted out old Joanna, with
closed lips.

"She's a bit overbearing sometimes,"
pursued Catherine. "But then she has
such pleasant ways with her when she is
in a good humour."

"Did ye ever remember Miss Veronica
taking any trouble about you? I don't mean
telling somebody else to take trouble and her
getting the credit of being very kind and
generous for it! But right-down putting
of herself out of the way for you quietly,
where there was no show-off in the matter?
Because I've know'd her ever since she
was born, and I can't call such a thing to
mind."

Catherine opined under her breath that
Joanna was "crusty" to-night.

The old woman's ears were quick enough