The day was very bright even for the bright Southern spring, and there was a delicious crispness in the golden air. As Elizabeth leaned out of her window soon after sunrise the beauty and peace around her lightened her weary heart. Newington had long fallen into a picturesque shabbiness, to which Elizabeth was quite accustomed and did not feel to be a hardship. At the back of the house her window opened upon what had once been a prim garden with box hedges; but the hedge had grown into trees, and the flowers and shrubs had long ago forgotten to be prim. Violets, that are natural vagabonds and marauders, bloomed all over the garden. Of gaudy tulips, there were ranks of bold stragglers that flaunted their saucy faces in the cold east wind, which slapped them sharply. There was an arbour nearly sinking under its load of yellow roses, that bloomed bravely until the December snows covered them. Down the river the dark-green woods of Deerchase were visible, with an occasional glimpse of the house through the trees. The Newington house faced the river, and a great ill-kept lawn sloped down to the water. It was quite a mile across to the other shore, and the water was steely blue in the morning light, except where a line of bent and crippled alders on the shore made a shadowy place in the brightness. And this home, so dearly loved in spite of its shabbiness, she might have to leave. What was to become of them in that event neither she nor Blair knew. He understood but one way of making a living, and that was out of the ground. He was essentially a landed proprietor, and take him away from the land and he was as helpless as a child. He might, it is true, become manager of somebody’s estate, but that would be to step into a social abyss, for he would then be an overseer. In short, a landed man taken away from his land in those days was more helpless than could well be imagined. Down by the stable lot Elizabeth saw a commotion. Alabaster had been fed, and the hostler was bringing him out of his stall for his morning exercise. He came rather more amiably than usual. Blair and Hilary were both there. Elizabeth could see Blair’s tall figure outlined distinctly; he was standing meditatively with his hands in his pockets. Hilary watched the hostler put the saddle on Alabaster, then mounted, and rode off, the creature going along quietly enough. When Blair came in to breakfast he wore a look of peace that Elizabeth had not seen for a long time on his face. Elizabeth, on the contrary, for once had lost some of her self-control. She was pale and silent, and could scarcely force a smile to her lips when her husband gave her his good-morning kiss.