Sir Godfrey looked down at her, smiling at her juvenile arrogance, which, to his mind, was more bewitching than another woman’s humility. “We mean to show them the way next year, if we take a house in town,” he said. “But we are not going to have a house in town,” answered Juanita, quickly. “Why, Godfrey, you know I have done with all that kind of frivolity. We can go to Victoria Street in May, and stay with our people there long enough to see all the pictures and hear some good music, and just rub shoulders with the friends we like at half a dozen parties, and then we will go back to our nest at the Priory. Do you think that I am like Lady Mountain, and want to waste my life upon the society struggle, when I have _you_?” It was after five o’clock when they left Dorchester. It was more than half-past seven when they drew near Cheriton, and the sun was setting behind the irregular line of hills towards Studland. They approached the Manor by one of the most picturesque lanes in the district, a lane sunk between high banks, rugged and rocky, and with here and there a massive trunk of beech or oak jutting out above the roadway, while the gnarled and twisted roots spread over the rough, shelving ground, and seemed to hold up the meadow-land upon the higher level; a dark, secret-looking lane it must have seemed on a moonless night, sunk so deeply between those earth walls, and overshadowed by those gigantic trunks and interlacing branches; but in this mellow evening light it was a place in which to linger. There was a right of way through Cheriton Chase, and this sunk lane was the favourite approach. A broad carriage drive crossed the Chase and park, skirted the great elm avenue that led to the house, and swept round by a wide semi-circle to the great iron gates which opened on the high-road from Wareham. The steep gable ends of an old English cottage rose amidst the trees, on the upper ground just outside the gate at the end of the lane. It was a veritable old English cottage, and had been standing at that corner of the park-like meadow for more than two hundred years, and had known but little change during those two centuries. It was a good deal larger than the generality of lodges, and it differed from other lodges insomuch as it stood outside the gate instead of inside, and on a higher level than the road; but it was a lodge all the same, and the duty of the person who lived in it was to open the gate of Cheriton Chase to all comers, provided they came in such vehicles as were privileged to enjoy the right of way. There was a line drawn somewhere; perhaps at coal waggons or tradesmen’s carts; but for the generality of vehicles the carriage road across Cheriton Chase was free. A rosy-faced girl of about fourteen came tripping down the stone steps built into the bank as the carriage approached, and was curtseying at the open gate in time for Sir Godfrey to drive through without slackening the pace. He gave her a friendly nod as he passed.