It was raining, apparently, but she didn't mind-she would put on stout shoes and walk over toPlash. She was restless and so fidgety that it was a pain; there were strange voices that frightenedher-they threw out the ugliest intimations-in the empty rooms at home. She would see old Mrs.Berrington, whom she liked because she was so simple, and old Lady Davenant, who was stayingwith her and who was interesting for reasons with which simplicity had nothing to do. Then shewould come back to the children's tea-she liked even better the last half-hour in the schoolroom, with the bread and butter, the candles and the red fire, the little spasms of confidence of Miss Steetthe nursery-governess, and the society of Scratch and Parson (their nicknames would have made youthink they were dogs) her small, magnificent nephews, whose flesh was so firm yet so soft and theireyes so charming when they listened to stories. Plash was the dower-house and about a mile and ahalf, through the park, from Mellows. It was not raining after all, though it had been; there was onlya grayness in the air, covering all the strong, rich green, and a pleasant damp, earthy smell, and thewalks were smooth and hard, so that the expedition was not arduous.The girl had been in England more than a year, but there were some satisfactions she had not gotused to yet nor ceased to enjoy, and one of these was the accessibility, the convenience of thecountry. Within the lodge-gates or without them it seemed all alike a park-it was all so intensely'property.' The very name of Plash, which was quaint and old, had not lost its effect upon her, norhad it become indifferent to her that the place was a dower-house-the little red-walled, iviedasylum to which old Mrs. Berrington had retired when, on his father's death, her son came into theestates. Laura Wing thought very ill of the custom of the expropriation of the widow in the eveningof her days, when honour and abundance should attend her more than ever; but her condemnationof this wrong forgot itself when so many of the consequences looked right-barring a littledampness: which was the fate sooner or later of most of her unfavourable judgments of Englishinstitutions. Iniquities in such a country somehow always made pictures; and there had been dowerhouses in the novels, mainly of fashionable life, on which her later childhood was fed. The iniquitydid not as a general thing prevent these retreats from being occupied by old ladies with wonderfulreminiscences and rare voices, whose reverses had not deprived them of a great deal of becominghereditary lace. In the park, half-way, suddenly, Laura stopped, with a pain-a moral pang-thatalmost took away her breath; she looked at the misty glades and the dear old beeches (so familiarthey were now and loved as much as if she owned them); they seemed in their unlighted Decemberbareness conscious of all the trouble, and they made her conscious of all the change. A year ago sheknew nothing, and now she knew almost everything; and the worst of her knowledge (or at least theworst of the fears she had raised upon it) had come to her in that beautiful place, where everythingwas so full of peace and purity, of the air of happy submission to immemorial law. The place was thesame but her eyes were different: they had seen such sad, bad things in so short a time. Yes, the timewas short and everything was strange. Laura Wing was too uneasy even to sigh, and as she walkedon she lightened her tread almost as if she were going on tiptoe