Tom's sister, Lady Arthur Wanstead, sent Margaret a diamond comb and a long letter, and Mrs. Lakeman sent her a fitted travelling-bag, and Lena sent a full-sized green porcelain cat.
It is just two years since that morning at the church. The Carringfords are at Florence now, and Lord Eastleigh, and Sir George Stringer, who has retired from his office, are with them, and they are looking forward to Louise Hunstan, who is coming out on a six weeks' holiday. Lena Lakeman has married an army doctor and gone to India; and Mrs. Lakeman, who was very angry at Lena's marriage, which she thought a bad one, took to speculating in West African mines, and left England lately in order to look after her ventures. It was said last year that she had made a great fortune; but, even if it is true, she will probably lose it again, and console herself with the thought that the sensation of being a beggar is altogether a new one.
Hannah is at Chidhurst alone, and something that would be almost droll seems possible. One afternoon a stranger appeared at the farm, a loutish-looking man of six-and-thirty, but with more intelligence in him than appeared on the surface. He was a student of agriculture, he explained, second son of a land-owner in Somerset, and had a fancy for renting a property in Surrey. He had heard that Woodside Farm might possibly want a tenant. Hannah assured him to the contrary with some asperity; but eventually, being overcome by the stranger's manner, she not only showed him over the farm, but, since he had come from a distance, gave him tea with a dish of chicken fried in batter, and scones that had been hurriedly made by Towsey. She explained to him while the meal progressed that she found the farm somewhat difficult to manage single-handed. The stranger felt the truth of this, and she struck him as being a most sensible and capable woman. A farm, he told her, wanted a man to look after it, to which she agreed and invited him to come again.
"The coming of the stranger," said Margaret to Tom when she had read a prim letter in Hannah's spiky writing.
He looked at her for a moment, then her meaning dawned on him. "Good! good!" he said; "history makes a point of repeating itself, you know. I shouldn't wonder—"
"And I shouldn't," she laughed.
Meanwhile the villagers nod their heads and say that this year spring cleaning was even more thorough than usual at Woodside Farm.
THE END