Judith Pepperdine, many years younger than her sister, was dressed in black too, but the sombreness of her attire was relieved by white cuffs and collar, and by a very long thin gold chain, which was festooned twice round her neck ere it sought refuge in the watch-pocket at her waist. She had a slender figure of great elegance, and was proud of it, just as she was proud of the fact that at forty years of age she was still a pretty woman. There was something of the girl still left in her: some dreaminess of eye, a suspicion of coquetry, an innate desire to please the other sex and to be admired by men. Her cheek was still smooth and peach-like; her eyes still bright, and her brown hair glossy; old maid that she undoubtedly was, there were many good-looking girls in the district who had not half her attractions. To her natural good looks Judith Pepperdine added a native refinement and elegance; she knew how to move about a room and walk the village street. Her smile was famous--old Dr. Stubbins, of Normanfold, an authority in such matters, said that for sweetness and charm he would back Judith Pepperdine’s smile against the world. There were many people who wondered why the handsome Miss Pepperdine had never married, but there was scarcely one who knew why she had remained and meant to remain single. Soon after the marriage of her sister Lucy to Cyprian Damerel, Judith developed a love-affair of her own with a dashing cavalry man, a sergeant of the 13th Hussars, then quartered at Oakborough. He was a handsome young man, the son of a local farmer, and his ambition had been for soldiering from boyhood. Coming into the neighbourhood in all his glory, and often meeting Judith at the houses of mutual friends, he had soon laid siege to her and captured her susceptible heart. Their engagement was kept secret, for old Mrs. Pepperdine had almost as great an objection to soldiers as to foreigners, and would have considered a non-commissioned officer beneath her daughter’s notice. The sergeant, however, had aspirations--it was his hope to secure a commission in an infantry regiment, and his ambition in this direction seemed likely to be furthered when his regiment was ordered out to India and presently engaged in a frontier campaign. But there his good luck came to an untimely end--he performed a brave action which won him the Victoria Cross, but he was so severely wounded in doing it that he died soon afterwards, and Judith’s romance came to a bitter end. She had had many offers of marriage since, and had refused them all--the memory of the handsome Hussar still lived in her sentimental heart, and her most cherished possession was the cross which he had won and had not lived to receive. Time had healed the wound: she no longer experienced the pangs and sorrows of her first grief. Everything had been mellowed down into a soft regret, and the still living affection for the memory of a dead man kept her heart young.