It must be nearing four o'clock: she could tell it by the sun, for she had no watch: and she thought she would go in. Slowly taking up the book, she was turning towards home, which was close by, when upon giving a lingering farewell look down the road, a solitary foot passenger came into view: a gentlemanly young man, with an umbrella in his hand and a coat on his arm. _Was_ it Oliver? She was not quite sure at first. He was of middle height, slight and slender: had a mild fair face and blue eyes with a great sadness in them. Jane noticed the sadness at once, and thought she remembered it; she thought the face also like her own and her mother's. "Oliver?" "Jane! Why--is it you? I did not expect to find you under that peasant bonnet, Jane." They clung to each other, kissing fondly, tears in the eyes of both. "But why are you walking, Oliver? Did you come to Crabb?" "Yes," he said. "I thought I might as well walk; I did not think it was quite so far. The porter will send on my things." There was just a year between them; Oliver would be twenty-one in a month, Jane was twenty-two, but did not look as much. She took his arm as they walked home. As she halted at the little gate, Oliver paused in surprise and gazed about: at the plain wooden palings painted green, which shut in the crowded, homely garden; at the old farmhouse. "Is _this_ the place, Jane?" "Yes. You have not been picturing it a palace, have you?" Oliver laughed, and held back the low gate for her. But as he passed in after her, a perceptible shiver shook his frame. It was gone in a moment; but in that moment it had shaken him from head to foot. Jane saw it. "Surely you have not caught a chill, Oliver?" "Not at all; I am warm with my walk. I don't know why I should have shivered," he added. "It was like the feeling you have when people say somebody's 'walking over your grave.'" Mr. Preen received his son coldly, but not unkindly; Mrs. Preen did the same; she was led by her husband's example in all things. Tea, though it was so early, was prepared at once, with a substantial dish for the traveller; and they sat down to it in the parlour. It was a long room with a beam running across the low ceiling. A homely room, with a coarse red-and-green carpet and horse-hair chairs. A few ornaments of their own (for the furniture belonged to the house), relics of better days, were disposed about; and Jane had put on the table a glass of early primroses. The two windows, tall and narrow, answered to those in the Buttery. Oliver surveyed the room in silent dismay: it wore so great a contrast to the French salons at Tours to which he was accustomed. He gave them the details of his aunt's death and of her affairs.