CHAPTER I.
THE NEW-COMERS.
"If you please, mum," said the voice of a domestic from somewhere
round the angle of the door, "number three is moving in.
Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either side of a table, sprang
to their feet with ejaculations of interest, and rushed to the window of the
sitting-room.
"Take care, Monica dear," said one, shrouding herself in the lace
curtain; "don\'t let them see us.
"No, no, Bertha. We must not give them reason to say that their
neighbors are inquisitive. But I think that we are safe if we stand like
this."
The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn, well trimmed and
pleasant, with fuzzy rosebushes and a star-shaped bed of sweet-william.
It was bounded by a low wooden fence, which screened it off from a broad,
modern, new metaled road. At the other side of this road were three large
detached deep-bodied villas with peaky eaves and small wooden balconies,
each standing in its own little square of grass and of flowers. All three
were equally new, but numbers one and two were curtained and sedate,
with a human, sociable look to them; while number three, with yawning
door and unkempt garden, had apparently only just received its furniture
and made itself ready for its occupants. A four-wheeler had driven up to
the gate, and it was at this that the old ladies, peeping out bird-like from
behind their curtains, directed an eager and questioning gaze.