Here resided Edward Shafto, late Fellow of St. John’s, Oxford, his wife Lucilla, and his son Douglas. Ten years previously the family had descended on Tadpool as from the skies—or as a heavy stone cast into some quiet mill pond. No one in the neighbourhood could discover anything about them—although Jane Tebbs’s exertions in the matter were admittedly prodigious and unwearied. The house agent proved disappointingly vague, and could only inform her that a gentleman who happened to hear of the place had come down from London, inspected the house, liked its lofty, spacious rooms with their old mahogany doors (it recalled his home), was much taken with the gardens—and promptly signed the lease! Certainly it was an audacious step to invade a strange neighbourhood without a social sponsor or reference. However, the community breathed more freely when they beheld the new tenant of “Littlecote,” a middle-aged, distinguished-looking individual; and Miss Jane discovered, or pretended to discover, that he was one of the Shaftos of Shafton Court. Mrs. Shafto (who looked surprisingly young to be the mother of a tall lad of ten) had a pretty figure, quantities of lightish red hair, an animated manner, and a pair of hard blue eyes. She was fashionably turned out, and her hat of a remarkable shape was discussed in the village for weeks. The arrival of furniture vans, horses, carriages and a number of servants, afforded unqualified interest to the Misses Tebbs; and moreover advertised the fact that the new-comers were well-to-do; and after allowing a reasonable time for the strangers to settle down, the neighbours called. By and by these calls were returned by Mrs. Shafto in a smart victoria and a still smarter costume; her husband was merely represented by a neatly printed card, which bore the name of “Mr. Edward Shafto, Athenaeum Club.” Mr. Edward Shafto was rarely to be met beyond his grounds and garden, unless driving through the village to Bricklands railway station, en route for London. He did not sit on the Bench, nor was he a churchwarden, the usual grounds of meeting. When encountered he was invariably agreeable and had charming easy manners, but not much to say for himself, and his acquaintance, like the farmers and the claret, got “no forrarder.” Gradually the painful truth was accepted that Shafto did not care to know people. He never dined out, he did not shoot or hunt, but it was mysteriously whispered that “he wrote.” What, no one precisely knew, but one fact was common property: he was fond of horticulture and the once famous gardens of “Littlecote” had been delightfully restored.