Miss Monro, on the contrary, strolled about everywhere, noticing all the alterations in place and people, which were never improvements in her opinion.

Ellinor had plenty of callers (her tenants, Mr.and Mrs.Osbaldistone among others), but, excepting in rare cases--most of them belonged to humble life--she declined to see every one, as she had business enough on her hands: sixteen years makes a great difference in any set of people.

The old acquaintances of her father in his better days were almost all dead or removed; there were one or two remaining, and these Ellinor received; one or two more, old and infirm, confined to their houses, she planned to call upon before leaving Hamley.
Every evening, when Dixon had done his work at Mr.Osbaldistone's, he came up to the Parsonage, ostensibly to help her in moving or packing books, but really because these two clung to each other--were bound to each other by a bond never to be spoken about.

It was understood between them that once before Ellinor left she should go and see the old place, Ford Bank.

Not to go into the house, though Mr.and Mrs.Osbaldistone had begged her to name her own time for revisiting it when they and their family would be absent, but to see all the gardens and grounds once more; a solemn, miserable visit, which, because of the very misery it involved, appeared to Ellinor to be an imperative duty.
Dixon and she talked together as she sat making a catalogue one evening in the old low-browed library; the casement windows were open into the garden, and the May showers had brought out the scents of the new-leaved sweetbriar bush just below.