‘Shall I bring oot the tea to you theer, mum?’ called Sarah gruffly, from the garden door. ‘Master and Mr. Elsmere are just coomin’ down t’ field by t’ stepping-stones.’ Mrs. Thornburgh signalled assent and the tea-table was brought. Afternoon tea was by no means a regular institution at the vicarage of Long Whindale, and Sarah never supplied it without signs of protest. But when a guest was in the house Mrs. Thornburgh insisted upon it; her obstinacy in the matter, like her dreams of cakes and confections, being part of her determination to move with the times, in spite the station to which Providence had assigned her. A minute afterward the vicar, a thick-set gray-haired man of sixty, accompanied by a tall younger man in clerical dress, emerged upon the lawn. ‘Welcome sight!’ cried Mr. Thornburgh; ‘Robert and I have been coveting that tea for the last hour. You guessed very well, Emma, to have it just ready for us.’ ‘Oh, that was Sarah. She saw you coming down to the stepping-stones,’ replied his wife, pleased, however, by any talk of appreciation from her mankind, however small. ‘Robert, I hope you haven’t been walked off your legs?’ ‘What, in this air, cousin Emma? I could walk from sunrise to sundown. Let no one call me an invalid any more. Henceforth I am a Hercules.’ And he threw himself on the rug which Mrs. Thornburgh’s motherly providence had spread on the grass for him, with a smile and a look of supreme physical contentment, which did indeed almost efface the signs of recent illness in the ruddy boyish face. Mrs. Thornburgh studied him; her eye caught first of all by the stubble of reddish hair which as he shook off his hat stood up straight and stiff all over his head with an odd wildness and aggressiveness. She involuntarily thought, basing her inward comment on a complexity of reasons--‘Dear me, what a pity; it spoils his appearance!’ ‘I apologize, I apologize, cousin Emma, once for all,’ said the young, man, surprising her glance, and despairingly smoothing down his recalcitrant locks. ‘Let us hope that mountain air will quicken the pace of it before it is necessary for me to present a dignified appearance at ‘Murewell.’ He looked up at her with a merry flash in his gray eyes, and her old face brightened visibly as she realized afresh that in spite of the grotesqueness of his cropped hair, her guest was a most attractive creature. Not that he could boast much in the way of regular good looks: the mouth was large, the nose of no particular outline, and in general the cutting of the face, though strong and characteristic, had a bluntness and _naïveté_ like a vigorous unfinished sketch. This bluntness of line, however, was balanced by a great delicacy of tint--the pink and white complexion of a girl, indeed--enhanced by the bright reddish hair, and quick gray eyes.