It was all very English, very spick and span, and apparently very well to do. That the youth of the village was steadily leaving it for the Colonies, that the constant marrying in and in which had gone on for generations had produced an ugly crop of mental deficiency, and physical deformity among the inhabitants--that the standard of morals was too low, and the standard of drink too high--were matters well known to the Rector and the Doctor. But there were no insanitary cottages, and no obvious scandals of any sort. The Maumsey estate had always been well managed; there were a good many small gentlefolk who lived in the Georgian houses, and owing to the competition of the railways, agricultural wages were rather better than elsewhere. About a mile from the eastern end of the village was the small modernised manor-house of Bridge End, which belonged to Mark Winnington, and where his sister Alice, Mrs. Matheson, kept him company for the greater part of the year. The gates leading to Maumsey lay a little west of the village, while on the hill to the north rose, conspicuous against its background of wood, the famous old house of Monk Lawrence. It looked down upon Maumsey on the one hand and Bridge End on the other. It was generally believed that the owner of it, Sir Wilfrid Lang, had exhausted his resources in restoring it, and that it was the pressure of debt rather than his wife's health which had led to its being shut up so long. The dwellers in the village regarded it as the jewel in their landscape, their common heritage and pride. Lady Tonbridge, whose little drawing-room and garden to the back looked out on the hill and the old house, was specially envied because she possessed so good a view of it. She herself inhabited one of the very smallest of the Georgian houses, in the main street of Maumsey. She paid a rent of no more than L40 a year for it, and Maumsey people who liked her, felt affectionately concerned that a duke's grand-daughter should be reduced to a rent and quarters so insignificant. Lady Tonbridge however was not at all concerned for the smallness of her house. She regarded it as the outward and visible sign of the most creditable action of her life--the action which would--or should--bring her most marks when the recording angel came to make up her account. Every time she surveyed its modest proportions the spirit of freedom danced within her, and she envied none of the noble halls in which she had formerly lived, and to some of which she still paid occasional Visits. At tea-time, on the day following Winnington's first interview with his ward, Madeleine Tonbridge came into her little drawing-room, in her outdoor things, and carrying a bundle of books under the arm.