"Oh, my dear Evelyn, we have so much to tell each other that it seems hopeless. Can you tell me why you—no, don't answer, don't try to tell why you went to the convent; but tell me why you came to live in this neighbourhood?"
"Well, the land is very cheap here, and I wanted a large piece of ground."
"Oh, so you've settled here?"
"Yes; I've built a cottage… But I haven't been able to lay the garden out yet."
"Built a cottage?"
"What is there surprising in that?"
"Only this, that I returned home resolved to do some building at Riversdale—a gate lodge," and he talked to her of the gate lodge he had in mind, until he became aware of the incongruity. "But I didn't come here to talk to you of gate lodges. Tell me, Evelyn, how do you spend your time?"
"I go to town every morning to teach singing; I have singing-classes."
"So you are a singing-mistress now. Well, everything comes round at last. Your mother—"
"Yes, everything comes round again," she said, sighing; "and the neighbourhood isn't inconvenient. There is a good train in the morning and a good train in the evening; the one you came by is a wretched one, but if you had come by the later train you would have seen less of me. You're not sorry?"