The worst of winter had stormed itself away, and it was March—the latter end of March. The leonine portion of his reign had endured a long time this year, and though it was now over, the warmer gales had yet some north-east to blow back, and the dominion of the lamb had not fairly set in. And yet, there was the caress of spring in the air—that caress which is unmistakable, and which may be felt, if it be there, through the bleakest wind and the coldest rain. This caress was in the air, and the hue of spring was in the sky. Here and there her fingers had swept aside the withered leaves, and allowed a violet to push its way up; and in some very sheltered southern corners appeared a tuft or two of primroses. In the garden borders at Thorsgarth, the crocuses were beginning to make a gallant show. The blue behind the rolling white clouds was deep and profound,—steady and to be relied upon. In the shady corners of the garden, under the budding trees, the clumps of daffodils were putting forth their tender first shoots, ready to nod their heads and laugh through the April showers. And the grass, too, was recovering its colour,—its green, which weeks under the snow had faded and browned. Everything was full of promise. Nature stepped forward, erect and laughing, jocund, casting the burden of her sadness behind her; not as in autumn, advancing droopingly towards it. So much for the garden, the cultivated. Outside, the roads were heavy and soft with mud; but it was a mud to make glad the heart of man, especially farming man. The ploughed fields, stretching their great shoulders towards the uplands, looked rich in their purple-brown hue. The hedgerows here and there seemed to wear a filmy, downy veil, the first output of yellow-green buds. In the great pastures near Rookswood, on the Durham side of Tees, the giant ash-trees stood yet in their winter bareness, giving no sign, save by the hard, burnished black buds, which for months to come were meaning to hold fast their secret wealth of bud and leaf, their treasure of summer glory. There was every promise that this year the oak would be out before the ash, with, it was to be hoped, the proverbial result. It was on such an afternoon as this, when the breeze blew from the south-west, that Eleanor walked along one of the muddy lanes leading from Thorsgarth to Bradstane. Beside her trotted Mrs. Johnson’s little girl, Effie, whom Eleanor had borrowed a week or two ago from her mother, to keep her company in the solitude of Thorsgarth. For Gilbert’s prophecy had been fulfilled. She found it very lonely there, so lonely that she was now on her way, half-willingly, half-reluctantly, to the Dower House, in order to inspect it from garret to cellar, and think whether it would not better suit her as a residence than the great dreary house which had grown so oppressive to her. As they came in their walk to a bend in the river, Effie suddenly said—