the Rectory establishment, but she next heard the peculiar clatter by which a grand equipage announces its importance, and saw the coronetted blinkers tossing on the other side of the railing.  A kind little note of welcome was put into Rachel’s hand as she was seated in the luxurious open carriage, and Alick had never felt better pleased with his sister than when he found his wife thus spared the closeness of the cramping fly, or the dusty old rectory phaeton.  Hospitality is never more welcome than at the station, and Bessie’s letter was complacently accepted.  Rachel would, she knew, be too much tired to see her on that day, and on the next she much regretted having an engagement in London, but on the Sunday they would not fail to meet, and she begged that Rachel would send word by the servant what time Meg should be sent to the Rectory for her to ride; it would be a kindness to exercise her, for it was long since she had been used.

Rachel could not help colouring with pleasure at the notion of riding her own Meg again, and Alick freely owned that it was well thought of.  He already had a horse at his uncle’s, and was delighted to see Rachel at last looking forward to something.  But as she lay back in the carriage, revelling in the fresh wind, she became dismayed at the succession of cottages of gentility, with lawns and hedges of various pretensions.

“There must be a terrible number of people here!”

“This is only Littleworthy.”

“Not very little.”

“No; I told you it was villafied and cockneyfied.  There,” as the horses tried to stop at a lodge leading to a prettily built house, “that’s Timber End, the crack place here, where Bessie has always said it was her ambition to live.”

“How far is it from the Parsonage?”

“Four miles.”

Which was a comfort to Rachel, not that she wished to be distant from Bessie, but the population appalled her imagination.

“Bishopsworthy is happily defended by a Dukery,” explained Alick, as coming to the end of the villas they passed woods and fields, a bit of heathy common, and a scattering of cottages.  Labourers going home from work looked up, and as their eyes met Alick’s there was a mutual smile and touch of the hat.  He evidently felt himself coming home.  The trees of a park were beginning to rise in front, when the carriage turned suddenly down a sharp steep hill; the right side of the road bounded by a park paling; the left, by cottages, reached by picturesque flights of brick stairs, then came a garden wall, and a halt.  Alick called out, “Thanks,” and “we will get out here,” adding, “They will take in the goods the back way.  I don’t like careering into the churchyard.”