The lady looked discontentedly around on the hills, covered with the golden sunset, the river sleeping beneath them, and the distant village rising from masses of foliage, and pencilling its spires against the blue sky, where it fell down in soft, wreathing clouds at the mouth of the valley. "I dare say it is what you call fine scenery, and all that; but really I cannot see what tempted Mr. Farnham to think of forbidding the sale of this place; and, above all, to make it a condition that I should live here now and then while Fred is in college." "Your husband started life here, madam," answered the Judge, almost sternly; "and we love the places where our first struggles were made." "Yes, but then I didn't start life here with him, you know. Poor, dear Mr. Farnham was so much older, and his tastes so different, I sometimes wonder how he managed to win me, so young, so--so--but you comprehend, Judge!" "He had managed to get a handsome property together before that, I believe," said the Judge, with a demure smile. "But what is property without taste, and a just idea of style? Mr. Farnham became quite aware of his deficiency in these points when he married me." "There does seem to have been a deficiency," muttered the Judge, and having appeased himself with this bit of internal malice, he turned an attentive ear to the end of her speech. "His mother you know, was a commonish sort of person" Here Salina, who stood upon the broad door-step with the front door open, strode down and confronted Mrs. Farnham. She remained thus with those little grey eyes searching the lady's face, and with her long, bony hand tightly clenched, as if she waited for something else before her wrath would be permitted to reach the fighting point. But Mrs. Farnham remained silent, only muttering over "a very commonish sort of person indeed," and with hound-like reluctance, Salina retreated backward, step by step, to her position at the door. CHAPTER XXVII. NEW PEOPLE AND NEW HOMES There was energy and strength in her, A heart to will, with a hand to do; Like the fruit that lies in a chestnut bur That honest soul was fresh and true. Meantime Mary Fuller and Isabel had remained in the carriage, locked in each others arms, murmuring out their fondness and their grief, with promises of faithful remembrance amid broken sob; and tears, such as they had never shed before, even in their first poverty stricken orphanage.