Willow Farm and its broad acres belonged to Miss Ryan, and was managed for her by her nephew Francis. She lived in an old-fashioned house, long and low, with quaint dormer-windows set in a peaked roof of red tiles. The house stood in the middle of a garden filled to overflowing with country flowers, and the warm, sweet perfume of the crowded beds made Elsie feel that she had come close to the very heart of summer. The sun was ripening the black, juicy berries on the loaded cherry-trees; bees kept up a ceaseless hum; large roses pressed close together in masses of bloom. "What a little world of sweets!" said Elsie, smelling a bunch of crimson carnations. She was standing on the door-step after breakfast, wearing her pretty grey gown, and a creamy muslin kerchief knotted at the throat. Her face, under the golden straw-hat, was so richly, yet delicately, coloured that it wore the aspect of a flower. A slim, tall man, of eight or nine and twenty, stood looking at that face in the morning light; he had just given her the carnations. "I am glad you like the old place here," he said. "It isn't as romantic, of course, as Wayne's Court, but it is comfortable. You know Wayne? He is a very good fellow." "I met him in town," Elsie answered. "Ah, yes! he knows your friends the Lennards. What a wanderer he has been! But now, they tell me, he seems inclined to settle down at last." "That is a good thing," said Elsie, raising the carnations to her face. "He'll marry, I suppose," Francis Ryan went on. "The Danforths are trying to make up the match with Mrs. Verdon. Do you know her? A fair woman, with sky-blue eyes. She has come to The Cedars again, close to the Court; so that looks as if she meant business." This was the news that Elsie heard on her first day at Willow Farm. It gave her a strong desire for solitude, and she was glad when Francis said that he must go and look after one of the horses. She waited until he had disappeared, and then went down a long gravelled walk, between crowded borders, to a little white gate. Lifting the latch, she walked across a green meadow, and found herself close to the brink of a river. Rushbrook was a place of many waters, a land of green and silver, beautiful with the peace that belongs to a pastoral country. She soon found a cosy nook on an old tree-trunk in the shade, and sat down to think. It was a good spot for a reverie. You could listen to the whisper of the water among the sedges, and look off, across the river, to the low-lying meadows beyond--a scene which was fascinating in its intense quietness. It rests the eye and brain to gaze at those cool green levels, broidered with silvery rivulets, and watch the water stealing among rushes and tall rustling reeds. [Illustration: "IT WAS A GOOD SPOT FOR A REVERIE."]