Clean, humble, small, and quiet, the cottages and shops of the working-classes lined the broad pavement, with here a neat bank fronted by Corinthian pilasters, and there a rambling, wide-mouthed inn, haunted by loafing dogs and ostlers full of leisure. Then came the church, solid and unassuming, very essence made visible of that orderly if unimpassioned spirit that then possessed the Church of England. Under its shadow, flanked by tall clipped obelisks of yew, squatted the solid square of the vicarage, with green lawn and beds of roses leading down to the wicket that opened on the roadway. And beyond this again began a wide, ancient avenue of limes, fragrant and tranquil, on whose either side stretched that series of red-brick houses in which the Upper Ten of Darnley-on-Downe discreetly led its days, and formed an aristocracy no less rigid, no less zealous for birth and tradition than that higher world called ‘county,’ with which it had nothing to do, and yet so much in common. St. Eldred’s was the name of this provincial faubourg, and the wayfarer, passing down its green length, might divine its exclusive character from the lack of any invidious distinction made between the houses. The identity of each was kept sacred for the elect, and the outsider was to know nothing. In our own assertive time each gate would bear a curly Gothic title--‘Chatsworth,’ ‘Arundel,’ ‘Sandringham’ would gratify our loyal eyes. In those days Mrs. Blessing knew Miss Dadd’s house, and Miss Dadd knew Mrs. Blessing’s. This knowledge was held to be amply sufficient, and it was even felt that to share it with the unprivileged world at large would be profane and vulgar. Thus the unguided stranger would have travelled uninstructed past gateway after gateway, past trim red wall after trim red wall, without being able to attribute any definite personality to the dweller in each cloistered precinct. And therefore he must necessarily have passed on his way without gathering any idea of the extent to which the Dadds dominated St. Eldred’s.