be worth much i have not altered it but you have no it is altered go and see she went and read that in spite of losing his he would keep his grace came back surprised well i never she said who can have made such nonsense of it who indeed said he i have rubbed it all out as the point of it is quite gone you d no business to rub it out i didn t tell you to i meant to let it stay a little longer some idle boy did it no doubt she murmured as this seemed very probable and the actual was said no more and dismissed the matter from his mind from this day of his life onward for a considerable time though not absolutely out of his house as yet retired into the background of human life and action � a feat not particularly of performance any thb where when the has the assistance of a lost grace thinking that saw her write made no ther sign and the frail bark of fidelity that she had thus timidly launched was and lost chapter xvi dr lived on the slope of the hill in a house of less both as to architecture and as to magnitude than the timber merchant s the latter had without doubt been once the residence to the snug and modest domain of little of which the boundaries were now lost by its with others of its kind into the adjoining estate of mrs though the themselves were unaware of the fact there was every reason to believe � at least so the parson said � that the owners of that little had been s own ancestors the family name in numerous documents relating to of land about the time of the civil wars mr s dwelling on the contrary was small and comparatively modem it had been occupied and was in part occupied still by a retired farmer and his wife who on the surgeon s arrival in quest of a home had him by receding from their front rooms into the kitchen quarter whence they administered to his wants and emerged at regular intervals to receive from him a not unwelcome addition to their income the cottage and its garden were so regular in their arrangement that they might have been laid out by a dutch of the time of william and mary in dense hedge cut to was a door over which the hedge formed an arch and from the inside of the door a straight path bordered with box ran np the slope of the garden to the porch which was exactly in the middle of the house front with two windows on each side right and left of the path were first a bed of bushes next of next of next of next of old fashioned at the comers opposite the porch being of the w box resembling a pair of school over the roof of the could be seen the orchard on yet higher ground and behind the orchard the forest trees reaching up to the crest of the hill opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a swing gate leading into a field across which there ran a foot path the swing gate had just been and on one fine afternoon before the paint was dry and while were still dying the surgeon was standing in his sitting room looking out at the different who passed and along that route being of a philosophical stamp he perceived that the character of each of these travellers exhibited itself in a somewhat amusing manner by his or her method of handling the gate as regarded the men there was not much variety they gave the gate a kick and passed through the women were more to them the wood work was a a disgust a menace a treachery as the case might be the first that he noticed was a woman with her skirts tucked up and her hair she grasped the gate without looking giving it a push with her shoulder when the white drew from her an exclamation in language not too refined she went to the green bank sat down and rubbed herself in the grass cursing ike while ha i ha ha laughed the doctor the next was a girl with her hair short in whom the surgeon recognized the daughter of his late patient the south moreover a black bonnet that she wore by way of mourning reminded him that he had ordered the of a tree which had caused her parent s death and s losses she walked and thought and not but her led her to grasp the bar of the gate and touch it with her arm felt sorry that she should have soiled that new black frock poor as it was for it was probably her only one she looked at her hand and arm seemed but little wiped off the with an almost unmoved face and as if without her original thoughts thus she went on her way the then there came over the green quite a different sort of personage she walked as delicately as if she had been bred in town and as firmly as if she had been bred in the country she seemed one who dimly knew her appearance to be attractive but who retained some of the charm of being ignorant of that fact by forgetting it in a general she approached the gate to let such a creature touch it even with a tip of her glove was to almost like letting her proceed to self destruction he jumped up and looked for his hat but was unable to find the right one glancing again out of the window he saw that he was too late having come up she stopped looked at the gate picked up a little stick and using it as 