“No, I think not, no, I am from the south country, near the sea, nobody at all, my father keeps an inn.” “An inn! How extraordinary! How very ... very ...” “Extraordinary?” Nodding her head in the direction of the hidden mansion she added: “I am her companion.” “Lady Tillington’s?” She assented coolly, was silent, while Loughlin ransacked his brains for some delicate reference that would clear him over this ... this ... cataract. But he felt stupid—that confounded potation at “The Three Pigeons”! Why, that was where he had thought of her so admirably, too. He asked if she cared for the position, was it pleasant, and so on. Heavens, what an astonishing creature for a domestic, quite positively lovely, a compendium of delightful qualities, this girl, so frank, so simple! “Yes, I like it, but home is better. I should love to go back to my home, to father, but I can’t, I’m still afraid—I ran away from home three years ago, to go with my mother. I’m like my mother, she ran away from home too.” Orianda picked up the open parasol which she had dropped, closed it in a thoughtful manner, and laid its crimson folds beside her. There was no other note of colour in her white attire; she was without a hat. Her fair hair had a quenching tinge upon it that made it less bright than gold, but more rare. Her cheeks had the colour of homely flowers, the lily and the pink. Her teeth were as even as the peas in a newly opened pod, as clear as milk. “Tell me about all that. May I hear it?” “I have not seen him or heard from him since, but I love him very much now.” “Your father?” “Yes, but he is stern, a simple man, and he is so just. We live at a tiny old inn at the end of a village near the hills. ‘The Black Dog.’ It is thatched and has tiny rooms. It’s painted all over with pink, pink whitewash.” “Ah, I know.” “There’s a porch, under a sycamore tree, where people sit, and an old rusty chain hanging on a hook just outside the door.” “What’s that for?” “I don’t know what it is for, horses, perhaps, but it is always there, I always see that rusty chain. And on the opposite side of the road there are three lime trees and behind them is the yard where my father works. He makes hurdles and ladders. He is the best hurdle maker in three counties, he has won many prizes at the shows. It is splendid to see him working at the willow wood, soft and white. The yard is full of poles and palings, spars and fagots, and long shavings of the thin bark like seaweed. It smells so nice. In the spring the chaffinches and wrens are singing about him all day long; the wren is lovely, but in the summer of course it’s the whitethroats come chippering, and yellow-hammers.” “Ah, blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales!” “Yes, but it’s the little birds seem to love my father’s yard.” “Well then, but why did you, why did you run away?”