“I thought like’s not nobody would mention it to you,” Mrs. Black had further elucidated. “Of course _he_ wouldn’t say anything, men-folks are kind of sly and secret in their doings—even the best of ’em; and you’ll find it’s so, as you travel along life’s path-way.” Mrs. Black had once written a piece of poetry and it had actually been printed in the Grenoble _News_; since then she frequently made use of figures of speech. “A married woman and a widow can speak from experience,” she went on. “So I thought I’d just tell you: he’s as good as engaged, already.” “Do you mean Mr. Elliot?” asked Lydia incuriously. Mrs. Black nodded. “I thought you ought to know,” she said. Mr. Elliot had entered the room upon the heels of this warning, and Lydia had promptly forgotten it. Now she paused for a swift review of the weeks which had already passed since her arrival. Mr. Elliot had been unobtrusively kind and helpful from the first, she remembered. Later, he had been indefatigable in the matter of securing workmen for the restoration of the old house, when she made it clear to him that she did not want an architect and preferred to hire Brookville men exclusively. As seemed entirely natural, the minister had called frequently to inspect the progress of the work. Twice in their rounds together they had come upon Jim Dodge; and although the clergyman was affable in his recognition and greeting, Lydia had been unpleasantly surprised by the savage look on her landscape-gardener’s face as he returned the polite salutation. “Don’t you like Mr. Elliot?” she had ventured to inquire, after the second disagreeable incident of the sort. Jim Dodge had treated her to one of his dark-browed, incisive glances before replying. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that question satisfactorily, Miss Orr,” was what he said. And Lydia, wondering, desisted from further question. “That middle one looks some like one of the young ladies that was here this morning,” observed Martha, with the privileged familiarity of an old servant. “She must have dropped it,” said Lydia, slowly. “The young ladies here in the country has very bad manners,” commented Martha, puckering her lips primly. “I wouldn’t put myself out for them, if I was you, mem.” Lydia turned the picture over and gazed abstractedly at the three words written there: “Lest we forget!” Beneath this pertinent quotation appeared the initials “W. E.” “If it was for _me_ to say,” went on Martha, in an injured tone, “I’d not be for feedin’ up every man, woman and child that shows their face inside the grounds. Why, they don’t appreciate it no more than—” The woman’s eloquent gesture appeared to include the blue-bottle fly buzzing noisily on the window-pane: “Goodness gracious! if these flies ain’t enough to drive a body crazy—what with the new paint and all....” Chapter XIII.