"I hope you will not find it so," said Aldyth. "I think it is very pretty in the summer."
Aldyth was glad that her preparations for her mother's visit to Wyndham were about finished ere she was summoned away.
She wrote to inform her aunt of the time when they might be expected, and to beg her to be at Wyndham to welcome them.
Unfortunately the September evening on which Aldyth with her mother and Gladys arrived at Woodburn was very wet, and under driving rain and a leaden sky the High Street and the long straight road to Wyndham looked far from interesting. Mrs. Stanton's countenance, its pale, delicate beauty strikingly set off by the folds of crape which framed it, wore a melancholy expression as she glanced from the carriage at the gloomy prospect.
"I always said I could not bear to live at Woodham," she remarked, with a shiver; "but it is my fate. Well, I am old and a widow now; it does not matter where I live."
This was not encouraging; but Aldyth could not wonder at her mother's depression.
"Not old; beautiful and dear," she said, pressing her mother's hand. "And brighter days will come. Woodham does not always look like this."
"I should hope not," said Gladys, throwing herself back with a yawn as they passed the last house belonging to Woodham. "So this is your carriage, Aldyth? It is rather an antiquated affair, and the springs might be easier. Does your coachman always drive so slowly?"
"Yes, old John has an objection to using the whip," said Aldyth. "He always lets the horses drop into this jog-trot. And it is of no use speaking to him; he is too old to alter his ways."
"Then I should look out for another coachman if I were you," said Gladys.