 had
occasion to pay a few bills in the town and do a little shopping, when she
learnt that what was a new discovery to herself had become a common topic about
the streets. High-Place Hall was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to
live shortly; all the shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance
of her being a customer.
    Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so new to
her in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.
    When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render
chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a lover's feeling,
thought she would like to look at the outside of High-Place Hall. She went up
the street in that direction.
    The Hall, with its grey façade and parapet, was the only residence of its
sort so near the centre of the town. It had, in the first place, the
characteristics of a country mansion - birds' nests in its chimneys, damp nooks
where fungi grew, and irregularities of surface direct from Nature's trowel. At
night the forms of passengers were patterned by the lamps in black shadows upon
the pale walls.
    This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of the premises
having been in that lawless condition which accompanies the entry of a new
tenant. The house was entirely of stone, and formed an example of dignity
without great size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still less
consequential, yet the old-fashioned stranger instinctively said, »Blood built
it, and Wealth enjoys it,« however vague his opinions of those accessories might
be.
    Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been wrong, for until
this very evening, when the new lady had arrived, the house had been empty for a
year or two, while before that interval its occupancy had been irregular. The
reason of its unpopularity was soon made manifest. Some of its rooms overlooked
the market-place; and such a prospect from such a house was not considered
desirable or seemly by its would-be occupiers.
    Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights there. The lady had
obviously arrived. The impression that this woman of comparatively practised
manner had made upon the studious girl's mind was so deep that she enjoyed
standing under an opposite archway merely to think that the charming lady was
inside the confronting walls, and to wonder what she was doing. Her admiration
for the architecture of that front was entirely
