As they walked up the path, Smut, who was really Mrs. Vane’s dog and had got his own ideas as to etiquette, returned to his mistress’s side and trotted along gravely.  He knew that his chances of scampers were over for the day, for not even the most ardent runner could have crossed the field at full speed without coming to grief.  It was rough and stony, and to call it a field was a figure of speech; the soil was nothing but sand, and the grass was of the coarsest.  But the Rectory stood on rather rising ground, and old Dr. Bunton and his wife had fortunately been fond of gardening.  The lawn on the farther side of the house was very respectable, and more flowers and shrubs had been coaxed to grow than could have been expected.  Still, to newcomers fresh from a comfortable town-house—­and there is no denying that as far as comfort goes a town-house in winter has many advantages over a small country one—­it did look somewhat dreary and desolate.  All the brightness had gone out of the sky by now; it loomed blue-gray behind the chimneys, and a faint murmuring as of wind in the distance getting up its forces began to be heard.

Mrs. Vane shivered a little.

‘I do hope your father and Randolph will be in soon,’ she said.  ’It may be very mild here, but it strikes me as chilly all the same.  I really don’t think it is wise to stay out so late, and it has been so almost unnaturally still all day, I shouldn’t wonder if it was setting in for stormy weather.’

Biddy’s eyes sparkled.

‘I would so like,’ she was beginning, but she suddenly checked herself.  ‘Are there always shipwrecks when there’s storms?’ she asked.

‘I fear so,’ her mother replied.

‘Then I mustn’t like storms, I suppose,’ said the child.  ’It’s very tiresome—­everything’s made the wrong way.’

‘Bridget, take care what you’re saying,’ Mrs. Vane said almost sternly.

Biddy’s face did not pucker up, but a dark look came over it, taking away all the pleasant brightness and the merry eagerness of the gray eyes.  She did not often look like that, fortunately, for it made her almost ugly.  And though her face cleared a little after a while, still it was gloomy, like the darkening sky outside, when she followed Alie downstairs to tea, after they had taken off their things and the torn frock had been changed.

Things had hardly got into their regular order yet at Seacove Rectory.  The Vanes had only been there three days, and every one knows that the troubles of a removal, especially to a considerable distance, are very much aggravated when it takes place in midwinter.  It was not to be wondered at that ‘mamma’ felt both tired and rather dispirited.  She was a little homesick too, for mammas can feel homesick as well as both boys and girls; and indeed I would not take upon myself to say that ‘papas’ are quite above this weakness either.  Christmas time had been spent at Mrs. Vane’s old home, a warm, cheery, old-fashioned country-house, where grandpapa and grandmamma were still hale and hearty, and never so happy as when surrounded by their grandchildren.  This old home of mamma’s was within easy access of London too; no wonder, therefore, that the remote seaside rectory seemed a kind of exile to Mrs. Vane, though the reasons that had made Mr. Vane accept the offer of Seacove had been very important ones.