"Well, we shall be near neighbors," observed Phillis, somewhat shortly, as she paused before another green door, set in a long blank wall; "for here we are at the Friary, and I had better just run over the way and get the key from Mrs. Crump." Nan nodded, and then stood like an image of patience before the shabby green door. Would it open and let them into a new untried life? What sort of fading hopes, of dim regrets, would be left outside when they crossed the threshold? The thought of the empty rooms, not yet swept and garnished, made her shiver: the upper windows looked blankly at her, like blind, unrecognizing eyes. She was quite glad when Phillis joined her again, swinging the key on her little finger, and humming a tune in forced cheerfulness. "What a dull, shut-in place! I think the name of Friary suits it exactly," observed Nan, disconsolately, as they went up the little flagged path, bordered with lilac-bushes. "It feels like a miniature convent or prison: we might have a grating in the door, and answer all outsiders through it." "Nonsense!" returned Phillis, who was determined to take a bright view of things. "Don't go into the house just yet, I want to see the garden." And she led the way down a gloomy side-path, with unclipped box and yews, that made it dark and decidedly damp. This brought them to a little lawn, with tall, rank grass that might have been mown for hay, and some side-beds full of old fashioned flowers, such as lupins and monkshood, pinks and small pansies; a dreary little greenhouse, with a few empty flower-pots and a turned-up box was in one corner, and an attempt at a rockery, with a periwinkle climbing over it, and an undesirable number of oyster-shells. An old medlar tree, very warped and gnarled, was at the bottom of the lawn, and beyond this a small kitchen-garden, with abundance of gooseberry and currant-bushes, and vast resources in the shape of mint, marjoram, and lavender. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! what a wretched little place after our dear old Glen Cottage garden!" And in spite of her good resolutions, Nan's eyes grew misty. "Comparisons are odious," retorted Phillis, briskly. "We have just to make the best of things,--and I don't deny they are horrid,--and put all the rest away, between lavender, on the shelves of our memory." And she smiled grimly as she picked one of the gray spiky flowers. And then, as they walked round the weedy paths, she pointed out how different it would look when the lawn was mown, and all the weeds and oyster-shells removed, and the box and yews clipped, and a little paint put on the greenhouse. "And look at that splendid passion-flower, growing like a weed over the back of the cottage," she remarked, with a wave of her hand: "it only wants training and nailing up. Poor Miss Monks has neglected the garden shamefully; but then she was always ailing."