“It is always the case with houses enlarged by degrees. I have heard my poor mother say that when Melville or Mrs. Cameron first bought it, it was little better than a mere labourer’s cottage, with a field attached to it. And two or three years afterwards a room or so more was built, and a bit of the field taken in for a garden; and then by degrees the whole part now inhabited by the family was built, leaving only the old cottage as a scullery and washhouse; and the whole field was turned into the garden, as you see. But whether it was Melville’s money or the aunt’s that did it, I don’t know. More likely the aunt’s. I don’t see what interest Melville has in the place: he does not go there often, I fancy; it is not his home.” “Mr. Melville, it seems, is a painter, and, from what I heard you say, a successful one.” “I fancy he had little success before this year. But surely you saw his pictures at the Exhibition?” “I am ashamed to say I have not been to the Exhibition.” “You surprise me. However, Melville had three pictures there,--all very good; but the one I wished to buy made much more sensation than the others, and has suddenly lifted him from obscurity into fame.” “He appears to be a relation of Miss Mordaunt’s, but so distant a one that she could not even tell me what grade of cousinship he could claim.” “Nor can I. He is her guardian, I know. The relationship, if any, must, as you say, be very distant; for Melville is of humble extraction, while any one can see that Mrs. Cameron is a thorough gentlewoman, and Lily Mordaunt is her sister’s child. I have heard my mother say that it was Melville, then a very young man, who bought the cottage, perhaps with Mrs. Cameron’s money; saying it was for a widowed lady, whose husband had left her with very small means. And when Mrs. Cameron arrived with Lily, then a mere infant, she was in deep mourning, and a very young woman herself,--pretty too. If Melville had been a frequent visitor then, of course there would have been scandal; but he very seldom came, and when he did, he lodged in a cottage, Cromwell Lodge, on the other side of the brook; now and then bringing with him a fellow-lodger,--some other young artist, I suppose, for the sake of angling. So there could be no cause for scandal, and nothing can be more blameless than poor Mrs. Cameron’s life. My mother, who then resided at Braefieldville, took a great fancy to both Lily and her aunt, and when by degrees the cottage grew into a genteel sort of place, the few gentry in the neighbourhood followed my mother’s example and were very kind to Mrs. Cameron, so that she has now her place in the society about here, and is much liked.” “And Mr. Melville?--does he still very seldom come here?”