The sun was drawing towards the west, and the summer\'s afternoon was waning, for the days were not so long as they had been a month or two ago, when a gentleman, slight and rather short, with light eyes, fair curly hair, and about thirty years of age, alighted from the London train at Foxwood station. He had a black bag in his hand and a portmanteau in the van, and enquired of the porter the way to Foxwood.

"Do you mean Foxwood proper, sir; or Foxwood, Sir Karl Andinnian\'s place?" returned the porter.

"Foxwood proper, I suppose. It is a village, is it not?"

"Yes, sir. Go down the road to the left, sir, then take the first turning on your right, and it will bring you into Foxwood."

"Thank you," said the gentleman, and slipped a small silver coin into the porter\'s hand. He knew, nobody better, the value of a silver key: and the chances were that he might shortly get gossiping with this station porter about the neighbourhood and its politics.

Bag in hand, and leaving his portmanteau at the station, he speedily found himself in the heart of Foxwood. Casting about his eyes on this side and that, they settled on Paradise Row, on which the sun was shining, and on a white embossed card hanging in the first-floor window of the middle house, which card had on it, in large letters, "Apartments furnished."

At the open entrance-door of the same house stood a widow woman in a clean cap and smart black silk apron. Mrs. Jinks was en grande toilette that afternoon.

"It looks likely," said the stranger to himself. "Madame there will talk her tongue sore, I see, once prompted." And going up to the door, he politely took off his hat as he might to a duchess.

"You have apartments to let, I think, madam?"

"Good gracious!" cried the Widow Jinks, taken by surprise--for she was only looking out for the muffin-boy, and the slanting rays of the sun were dazzling her eyes, so that she had not observed the traveller. "I beg pardon, sir; apartments, did you say? Yes, sir, I\'ve got my drawing-room just emptied."

It happened that an elderly lady from Basham and her grand-daughters had been lodging there for a month, the young ladies being ardent disciples of Mr. Cattacomb; but they had now left, and the drawing-room was ready to be let again. Mrs. Jinks went on to explain this, rather volubly.

"I will go up and look at it, if you please," said the stranger.

The widow ushered him along the passage towards the stairs, treading softly as she passed the parlour door.

"I\'ve got a Reverend Gent lodging in there," she said, "minister of the new church, St. Jerome\'s. He has a meeting every Thursday evening, for Scripture reading, or something of that--exercises, I think they call it. This is Thursday, and they be all expected. But he wants his tea first, and that there dratted muffin-boy\'s not round yet. The Reverend Gent have dropped asleep on three chairs in his shirt sleeves, while he waits for it.----This is the drawing-room, sir."

The stranger liked the drawing-room very much; the sun made it cheerful, he said; and he liked the bedroom behind it. Mrs. Jinks rather hesitated at letting the two rooms alone. She generally let the bedrooms at the top of the house with them.

"How long shall you be likely to stay, sir?" questioned she.

"I do not know. It may be a week, it may be a month, it may be more. I am seeking country air and rest to re-establish my health, ma\'am, and want a quiet place to read in. I shall not give you much trouble."

Mrs. Jinks agreed to let him have the rooms at last, demanding a few shillings over the usual terms for the two: a bird in the hand, she thought, was worth two in the bush. Next she asked for references.

"I cannot refer you to any one here," he said, "for I don\'t know a soul in the place, and not a soul in it knows me. I will pay you every week in advance; and that I presume will do as well as references."

He laid down the sum agreed upon and a sovereign beside it. "You will be so good as to get in for me a few things to eat and drink, Mrs. Jinks. I should like to have some tea first of all, if convenient, and one of those muffins you spoke of. Well buttered, if you please."

"Yes, sir; certainly, sir. We get muffins at Foxwood all the year round, sir, on account of there being company in the place at summer time: in other towns, Basham, for instance, they are only made in winter. Buttered muffins and cress, sir, is uncommonly good together."

"Are they? I\'ll have some cress too."

Telling her, as well as he could remember, what articles he should want besides butter and muffins, and bidding her to add anything else that she thought he might require, he picked up his black bag to take it into the bedroom. Mrs. Jinks in her politeness begged him to let her take it, but he said certainly not.

"Is it all the luggage you\'ve got, sir, this?"

"My portmanteau is at the station. I could not order it on until I knew where I should be or, in fact, whether I should stay at Foxwood at all. Had I not found lodgings to my mind, ma\'am, I might have gone on somewhere else."

"Foxwood\'s the loveliest, healthiest spot you can find, sir," cried the widow, eagerly. "Sweet walks about it, there is."

"So I was told by my medical man. One wants nice rural walks, Mrs. Jinks, after reading hard."

"So one does, sir. You are reading up for college, I suppose? I had a young gent here once from Oxford. He got plucked, too, afterwards. There\'s the muffin-boy!" added Mrs. Jinks, in delight, as the fierce ring of a bel............