"You see, Hannah's older, and likes doing things herself," Mrs. Vincent answered; "and that's as well, too; it gives me time to think over all the years back. I was never able to do it before. You mustn't trouble about me, Margey; when people are getting on they like being quiet." It was evident that her mother wanted to be let alone, and Margaret respected her wish, though it made her own life more difficult. And then there was Mr. Garratt, brisk and vulgar, with the veneer of shoddy education over him, and the alertness of intelligence that is bent on "getting on" and making the most of chances. His coming and going would have been of little consequence to Margaret if he had but left her alone. But this was precisely what he would not do. She spoke to him as little as possible, and showed unconsciously that she thought him a rather inferior person; but Mr. Garratt faced everything, and was a difficult young man to abash. Moreover, Mr. Garratt had lately been going through an acute phase of his own, for possibilities had suggested themselves that puzzled and distracted him. He had seized a chance to improve his business by establishing a branch at Guildford, where he proposed to live during the summer months, leaving the Petersfield branch, more or less, to take care of itself. Land had gone up in Surrey; there was a good deal of buying and selling to be done among the people, who were anxious to build the red-brick houses at which Sir George Stringer had scoffed, and it had occurred to Mr. Garratt that the fashion might be used to his profit. Besides, he was tired of Petersfield. Guildford was nearer town; "a better class of people go there," he said, with the knowingness that grated on Margaret. It had lately become a rule that he appeared on Sunday morning and went to church with Mrs. Vincent and Hannah, walking back with them to the mid-day meal, which never varied--cold beef and baked plum-pudding in the winter, cold lamb and fruit tart in the summer, always eaten in silence, as if the Sabbath were a time of penance--and after it he was expected to submit, as he knew quite well, to a _tête-à-tête_ in the best parlor. But while he was getting his house and office ready at Guildford he often found it possible to take the afternoon train to Haslemere, and at Haslemere he hired a little dog-cart with a fat, gray pony, and drove himself over to Chidhurst, where he stayed to tea, driving himself back again in the early summer twilight. It was concerning the line he should take on these afternoons, that were somehow easier than the Sunday visits, that he was exercised in his mind. He had first considered Hannah from a matrimonial point of view on the advice of his mother, who had been assured by old Mrs. James Barton, of Petersfield, that she would ultimately possess Woodside Farm. It had seemed to Mr. Garratt that, by the time he was prepared to retire, the farm would be an excellent retreat for his old age, and