So, when he had decided upon the house, and Alice had taken possession of it, John Calverley congratulated himself on having settled her down in a place where not merely he was unknown, but where the spirit of inquisitiveness was unknown also. He heard of no gossiping, no inquiries as to who they were, or where they had come from. Comments, indeed, upon the disparity of years between the married couple reached his ears; but that he was prepared for, and did not mind, so long as Alice was loving and true to him. What cared he how often the world called him old, and wondered at her choice? It must be confessed that concerning the amount of gossip talked about him and his household, John Calverley was very much deceived. The people of Hendon was not different from the people of any other place, and though they lived remote from the world, they were just as fond of talking about the affairs of their neighbours as fashionable women round the tea-table in their boudoirs, or fashionable men in the smoking-room of their clubs. They discussed Mrs. A.'s tantrums and Mrs. B.'s stinginess, the doctor's wife's jealousy, and the parson's wife's airs; all each others' shortcomings were regularly gone through, and it was not likely that the household at Rose Cottage would be suffered to escape. On the contrary, it was a standing topic, and a theme for infinite discussion. Not that there was the smallest doubt amongst the neighbours as to the propriety of Alice's conduct, or the least question about her being the old gentleman's wife, but the mere fact of Mr. Claxton's being an old gentleman, and having such a young and pretty wife, excited a vast amount of talk; and when it was found that Mr. Claxton's business caused him to be constantly absent from home, there was no end to the speculation as to what that absence might not give rise. There seemed to be some sort of notion among the inhabitants that Alice would some day be carried bodily away, and many an innocent artist with his sketch-book in his breast-pocket, looking about him in search of a subject, has been put down by Miss M'Craw and her friends as a dangerous character, full of desperate designs upon Mr. Claxton's domestic happiness.