"Of course, I don't want to know anything about his money," Miss Stanbury said, "only I should like to know how much these people can afford to pay for their penny trash." On this occasion she had left the room and gone up-stairs before the knock came at the door, but she managed, by peeping over the balcony, to catch a glimpse of the "flipperty-flopperty" hat which her nephew certainly had with him on this occasion.
Hugh Stanbury had great news for his sister.

The cottage in which Mrs.Stanbury lived at Nuncombe Putney, was the tiniest little dwelling in which a lady and her two daughters ever sheltered themselves.

There was, indeed, a sitting-room, two bed-rooms, and a kitchen; but they were all so diminutive in size that the cottage was little more than a cabin.

But there was a house in the village, not large indeed, but eminently respectable, three stories high, covered with ivy, having a garden behind it, and generally called the Clock House, because there had once been a clock upon it.

This house had been lately vacated, and Hugh informed his sister that he was thinking of taking it for his mother's accommodation.