'You will not on any point,' said Gwen, a little drily.
'We have the country round us,' put in Elfie, 'and there must be some people to know; it is only just at first we shall be shut up to ourselves, I expect.'
'As to the people, there will be the villagers, of course,' said Gwen briskly; 'but we needn't count upon many friends in our own class of life. The big houses round here won't be desirous of the acquaintance of four unknown females with a very small income.'
'I always thought,' said Elfie, 'that country villages contained a clergyman and family, a doctor, and a squire. Isn't that the case here?'
'No; this is a kind of suburb of Brambleton. There is a vicarage, but I don't know anything about the clergyman.'
'Well, I hope we shan't all die of the dumps,' said Clare, shivering slightly, as a fresh blast of wind howled and shrieked in the old chimney.
'Oh, that dreadful wind, how I hate it! It seems like a bad omen to have such a welcome when we get here.'
'Rubbish! Go to bed, if you don't like it, and put your head under the clothes. Of course we notice the wind more in the country because of the trees.'
Clare did not get much sympathy from her sisters, and she soon left them and went up to her bedroom. There was a bright fire burning, and some of her own pretty things were already being unpacked by the busy Jane, who was perhaps more attached to her than to any of the others.
'Captain Knox thinks her the best of the bunch,' said she in confidence to Martha, when on the subject of 'our young ladies,' 'and so do I—Miss Agatha is rather commonplace, to my mind, though she is a good mistress, and Miss Gwendoline is always catching up one and taking one's breath away. Miss Elfrida is very pleasant, but she's always the same. Now Miss Clare's never two days alike; she's that gentle and appealin' sometimes, that she makes me love her, and then she's miles away in the clouds, and very cross, and then her spirits get so high that she's ready for any mischief—and there's no knowin' how to take her.'