They were, however, a very innocent, very simple, and unexciting group of country people. Mrs. Blencarrow had been a widow for five or six years, having lived there for some dozen years before, the most beloved of wives. She was not a native of the district, but had come from the South, a beautiful girl, to whom her husband, who was a plain gentleman of simple character and manners, could never be sufficiently grateful for having married him. The ladies of the district thought this sentiment exaggerated, but everybody acknowledged that Mrs. Blencarrow made him an excellent wife. When he died he had left everything in her hands--the entire guardianship of the children, untrammelled by any joint authority save that of her own brothers, whose names were put in the will as a matter of form, and without any idea that they would ever take upon them to interfere. There were five children, the eldest of whom was a slim girl of sixteen, very gentle and quiet, and not very strong; two boys of fourteen and twelve, at school; and two little ones, aged eight and nine respectively. They lived a very pleasant, well-cared-for, happy life. Mrs. Blencarrow’s means, if not very large, were comfortable enough. The house was handsomely _montée_, the children had everything they could desire; the gloom of her first widowhood had been over for some time, and she ‘saw her friends’ like any other lady in the county, giving very pleasant dinner-parties, and even dances when the boys were at home for their holidays--dances, perhaps, all the more gay and easy because the children had a large share in them, and a gentle license prevailed--the freedom of innocence and extreme youth. It is not to be supposed, when I say this, that anything which could in the remotest degree be called ‘fast’ was in these assemblies. Indeed, the very word had not been invented in those days, and Mrs. Blencarrow was herself an impersonation of womanly dignity. The country-people were even a little afraid of her, if truth must be told. Without being stiff or prudish, there was a little air she had, at the faintest shade of impropriety, which scared an offender more than denunciation. She had a determined objection to scandal, even to gossip, and looked coldly upon flirtation, which was not then a recognised pastime as it is now. Nothing ever filled the neighbours with greater consternation than when a passing visitor from London, seeing Mrs. Blencarrow for the first time, declared that she was a woman who looked as if she had a history. A history! When people say that, they do not mean anything noble or saintly; what it means is scandal, something that has been talked about. There was a general cry, which overwhelmed the unwary stranger. Mrs. Blencarrow a history! Yes, the very best history a woman can have--the record of a blameless life. ‘Nevertheless,’ said the unfortunate man, ‘there is something in her eyes----’