"This ought to be a good country for sport," I said—"fishing, and that sort of thing."
"You're stoppin' here for the night?" he asked. I presumed from his voice and appearance that he was a stable-man, and from his tone that he was disappointed that I had not brought a horse with me.
I assented to his question, and he said:
"I never heard of no fishin'. When people want to fish, they go to a lake about ten miles furder on."
"Oh, I do not care particularly about fishing," I said, "but there must be a good many pleasant roads about here."
"There's this one," said he. "The people on wheels keep to it." With this he turned and walked slowly towards the back of the house.
"A lemon-loving lot!" thought I, and as I approached the porch I saw that the lady who had gone to school at Walford was standing there. I did not believe she had been eating lemons, and I stepped forward quickly for fear that she should depart before I reached her.
"Been taking a walk?" she said, pleasantly. There was something in the general air of this young woman which indicated that she should have worn a little apron with pockets, and that her hands should have been jauntily thrust into those pockets; but her dress included nothing of the sort.
The hall lamp was now lighted, and I could see that her attire was extremely neat and becoming. Her face was in shadow, but she had beautiful hair of a ruddy brown. I asked myself if she were the "lady clerk" of the establishment, or the daughter of the keeper of the inn. She was evidently a person in some authority, and one with whom it would be proper for me to converse, and as she had given me a very good opportunity to open conversation, I lost no time in doing so.
"And so you used to live in Walford?" I said.