The rooms were pervaded with a disagreeable smell of damp coal smoke, and the fires struggled desperately to burn against the overwhelming odds of rain and wind which came down the chimneys.

Mrs.Goddard never remembered to have been so uncomfortable during the two previous winters she had spent in Billingsfield, and even Nellie grew impatient and petulant.

The only bright spot in those long days seemed to be made by the regular visits of Mr.Juxon, by the equally regular bi-weekly appearance of the Ambroses when they came to tea, and by the little dinners at the vicarage.

The weather had grown so wet and the roads so bad that on these latter occasions the vicar sent his dogcart with Reynolds and the old mare, Strawberry, to fetch his two guests.

Even Mr.Juxon, who always walked when he could, had got into the habit of driving down to the cottage in a strange-looking gig which he had imported from America, and which, among all the many possessions of the squire, alone attracted the unfavourable comment of his butler.