The place which Alice Claxton called her home, of which she was sole mistress, and which she dearly loved, was situate at Hendon. An old-fashioned, dreamy, by-gone kind of village, which, in these latter days, the Midland Railway has discovered to be a metropolitan suburb, and, as such, has brought it into vogue. Until within a very few years, however, it was one of the quietest places in England, visited occasionally in the summer by a few people from town, who found that Hampstead had been already almost swallowed up in bricks and mortar, and who extended their outing to get a little fresher air, and to enjoy the lovely view from Hendon Church. But its inhabitants generally were nothing-doing sort of people, bred and born in the parish, who preferred vegetating on an income which enabled them to keep a pony-chaise, and gave them perpetual leisure for pottering in their gardens, rather than adventuring their little capital, in speculations which might be disastrous, and which undoubtedly would be questionable. The house where Alice Claxton lived was on the right-hand side of the way as you turn from the little main street of the village towards the church. There is no use in looking for it now; it has been pulled down, and on its site have been erected two brand-new stucco villas, with plate-glass windows and brass door-knockers, high flights of door-steps with a stone pine-apple on either side, and long strips of garden before and behind, which the landscape-gardener's art has decorated with beds in the shape of pears, and hearts, and crosses, and various other elegant and appropriate designs. But in Alice's days it was a long, low-roofed, one-storied house, built of bricks of a comfortable warm ruddiness, without being glaringly red, and covered all over with a splendid Virginia creeper, which at this autumnal time was just assuming its loveliest hue. The rooms on the ground-floor were large, with rather low ceilings, and opening with French windows on a little paved terrace verandah-covered. It had been John Claxton's delight to suit the fittings and the furniture to the place for which they were destined. No modern stoves were to be found throughout it, but open fire-places inlaid with tiles, and iron dogs; the high-backed chairs, the broad table, and the heavy sideboard of the dining-room, were all in antique black oak; but in the drawing-room he had endeavoured to consult what he conjectured to be his wife's fancy, and the Venetian mirrors on the walls reflected the sheen of green silk and gold, with which the low quaint chairs and sofa and ottoman were covered, and produced endless repetitions of numerous tasteful specimens of glass and china with which the various étagères and whatnots were liberally covered. Alice, who before her marriage had been governess to the children of a Quaker wine-merchant in York, whose drab furniture had done good service during three generations,