A nature inclined to study and reflection, and nine years of life with a person of quick tongue, had bred in Cecilia a different calibre of mind to that of the provincial young lady of her time; and Lady Eliza had procured her excellent tuition. The widow had expected to find in her guest a far less uncommon personality, and it was with real satisfaction that she proceeded to introduce her to the very critical and rather literary society which she frequented. There were some belonging to it who were to see in Miss Raeburn, poor as she was, an ideal future for themselves. Cecilia, when she returned to Morphie, left more than one very sore heart behind her. To many it seemed wonderful that her experiences had not spoiled her, and that she could take up life again in the draughty, ill-lit house, whose only outward signs of animation were the sheep grazing under its windows and the pigeons pluming in rows under the weathercock swinging crazily on the stable roof. What people underrated was her devoted attachment to Lady Eliza, and what they could not understand was the fact that, while she was charmed, interested, and apparently engrossed by many things, her inner life might hold so completely aloof as never to have been within range of them. CHAPTER IV JIMMY INLAND from the river’s mouth the dark plough-fields stretched sombre, restful, wide, uncut by detail. The smaller roads intersecting the country were treeless in the main, and did not draw the eye from the majesty of the defined woods. There was everything to suggest breadth and full air; and the sky, as Gilbert rode up towards a farm cresting the swell of the high horizon, was as suggestive of it as the earth. The clear gray meeting the sweep of the world was an immensity on which cloud-masses, too high for rain, but full of it, looked as though cut adrift by some Titanic hand and left to sail derelict on the cold heavens. The road he was travelling was enlivened by a stream of people, all going in the same direction as himself, and mostly on foot, though a couple of gigs, whose occupants looked as much too large for them as the occupants of country gigs generally do, were ascending to the farm at that jog which none but agriculturally-interested persons can suffer. A displenishing sale, or ‘roup,’ as it is called, had been advertised there, which was drawing both thrifty and extravagant to its neighbourhood. Curiosity was drawing Gilbert. A compact little roan, bought for hacking about the country, was stepping briskly under him, showing its own excellent manners and the ease and finish of its rider’s seat. Beside the farm a small crowd was gathered round the pursy figure of a water-butt on high legs, which stood out against the sky.