The Spring was putting out primroses,—­the first handwriting of the year,—­as Sir Purcell wrote to er prettily.  Deire for fresh air, and the neighbourhood of his beloved, sent him on a journey down to Hillford.  Near the gates of the Hillford station, he passed Wilfrid and Adela, hurrying to catch the up-train, and received no recognition.  His face scarcely changed colour, but the birds on a sudden seemed to pipe far away from him.  He asked himself, presently, what were those black circular spots which flew chasing along the meadows and the lighted walks.  It was with an effort that he got the landscape close about his eyes, and remembered familiar places.  He walked all day, making occupation by directing his steps to divers eminences that gave a view of the Brookfield chimneys.  After night-fall he found himself in the firwood, approaching the ‘fruitless tree.’  He had leaned against it musingly, for a time, when he heard voices, as of a couple confident in their privacy.

The footman, Gainsford, was courting a maid of the Tinley’s, and here, being midway between the two houses, they met.  He had to obtain pardon for tardiness, by saying that dinner at Brookfield had been delayed for the return of Mr. Pole.  The damsel’s questions showed her far advanced in knowledge of affairs at Brookfield and may account for Laura Tinley’s gatherings of latest intelligence concerning those ‘odd girls,’ as she impudently called the three.

“Oh! don’t you listen!” was the comment pronounced on Gainsford’s stock of information.  But, he told nothing signally new.  She wished to hear something new and striking, “because,” she said, “when I unpin Miss Laura at night, I’m as likely as not to get a silk dress that ain’t been worn more than half-a-dozen times—­if I manage.  When I told her that Mr. Albert, her brother, had dined at your place last Thursday—­demeaning of himself, I do think—­there!—­I got a pair of silk stockings,—­not letting her see I knew what it was for, of coursed and about Mrs. Dump,—­Stump;—­ I can’t recollect the woman’s name; and her calling of your master a bankrupt, right out, and wanting her money of him,—­there! if Miss Laura didn’t give me a pair of lavender kid-gloves out of her box!—­and I wish you would leave my hands alone, when you know I shouldn’t be so silly as to wear them in the dark; and for you, indeed!”

But Gainsford persisted, upon which there was fooling.  All this was too childish for Sir Purcell to think it necessary to give warning of his presence.  They passed, and when they had gone a short way the damsel cried, “Well, that is something,” and stopped.  “Married in a month!” she exclaimed.  “And you don’t know which one?”