“No; please sit down,” she said, softly. “I am all right--only very foolish. That last crash was too awful. It was silly of me to mind, though. I have seen worse storms. It is a sign of advancing age, I suppose.” I laughed. She was still regarding me fixedly. “So we are neighbors, Miss Ffolliot?” she remarked. “Close ones,” I answered. “There is only a little belt of trees between us.” “I might have guessed who you were,” she said. “For the moment, though, it did not occur to me. You are not,” she said, with a faint smile, “at all what one looks for in a country clergyman’s daughter.” “I have lived abroad nearly all my life,” I said. “I was at school in Berlin and Heidelberg. My sister has always been my father’s helper. I am afraid that parish work does not appeal to me at all.” “I am not surprised at that,” she answered. “One needs a special disposition to interest one’s self in those things, and, without being a physiognomist, I can tell you that you have not got it.” “People in the country are so stupid, and they take so much for granted,” I remarked. “If I were a philanthropist, I should certainly choose to work in a city.” “You are quite right,” she answered, absently. “Work amongst people who have learned to think a little for themselves is more inspiring.” We were silent for a moment or two. She was evidently not interested in the discussion, so I did not attempt to carry it on. I turned a little in my chair to watch the storm outside, conscious all the time that her eyes scarcely left my face. “I had grown so used,” she said, presently, “to the rectory being empty, that I had quite forgotten the possibility of its being occupied again. The vicar used to live several miles away. I wonder that Mr. Deville did not know anything about you--that he did not know your name, at any rate.” Now I was sorry that she had mentioned Mr. Deville. I was doing my best to forget all that I had heard from Lady Naselton, and to form an independent judgment; but at her words the whole substance of it returned to me with a rush. I leaned back in my chair, and looked at her thoughtfully. She was a woman whose age might be anything between thirty-five and forty. She was plainly dressed, but with a quiet elegance which forbade any idea of a country dressmaker. She was too thin for her figure to be considered in any way good; but she was tall and graceful in all her movements. Her thick, brown hair, touched here and there with grey, was parted in the middle and vigorously brushed away from a low, thoughtful forehead, over which it showed a decided propensity to wave. Her features were good and strongly marked, and her skin was perfect. Her eyes were bright and dark, her mouth piquant and humorous. She had no pretence to beauty, but she was certainly a very attractive and a very well-bred woman. I had never in all my life seen any one who suggested less those things at which Lady Naselton had hinted.