help them as much as possible she used as soon as she left school to lend a of the d hand at or on neighbouring farms or by preference at or butter making processes which she had learnt when her father had owned cows and being it was a kind of work in which she every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the family burdens and that should be the representative of the at the d mansion came as a thing of course in this instance it must be admitted that the were putting their fairest side outward she from the van at cross and ascended on foot a hill in the direction of the district known as the chase on the borders of which as she had been informed mrs d s seat the slopes would be found it was not a home in the ordinary sense with fields and pastures and a grumbling farmer out of whom the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his family by hook or by it was more far more a house built for enjoyment e and simple with not an acre of troublesome land attached to it beyond what was required for purposes and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner and tended by a the crimson brick lodge came first in sight up to its in dense thought this was the mansion itself till passing through the side with some and onward to a point at which the drive took a turn the house proper stood in full view it was of recent � indeed almost new � and of the same rich red that formed such a contrast with the of the lodge par behind the comer of the house � which rose like a bloom against the subdued colours around � stretched the soft e landscape of the chase � a truly venerable tract of forest land one of the few remaining in england of date wherein was still found on the maiden aged oaks and where enormous trees not planted by the hand of man grew as they had grown when they were for bows all this antiquity however though visible from the slopes was outside the immediate boundaries of the estate everything on this snug property was bright and well kept acres of glass houses stretched down the to the at their feet everything looked like money � like the last coin issued from the the stables partly by pines and oaks and fitted with every late were as dignified as of ease on the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent its door being towards her simple stood at gaze in a attitude on the edge of the gravel sweep her feet had brought her onward to this point before she had quite realized where she was and now all was contrary to her expectation i thought we were an old family but this is all new she said in her she wished that she had not fallen in so readily with her mother s plans for claiming kin and had endeavoured to gain assistance nearer home the d � or d as they at first called themselves � who owned all this were a somewhat family to find in such an part of the parson had spoken truly when he said that our john was the only really representative of the old d family existing in the or near it he might have added what he knew very well that the d were no more d of the true tree than he was himself yet it must be admitted that this family formed a very good stock whereon to a name which sadly wanted such when old mr deceased had op the d made his fortune as an honest merchant some said money in the north he decided to settle as a county man in the south of england out of hail of his business district and in doing this he felt the necessity of with a name that would not too readily identify him with the smart of the past and that would be less commonplace than the original bald words for an hour in the british the pages of works devoted to extinct half extinct obscured and ruined families to the quarter of england in which he proposed to settle he considered that d looked and sounded as well as any of them and d accordingly was to his own name for himself and his yet he was not an extravagant minded man in this and in his family tree on the new basis was duly reasonable in his and aristocratic links never a single title above a rank of strict moderation of this work of imagination poor and her parents were in ignorance � much to their discomfiture indeed the very possibility of such was unknown to them who supposed that though to be well favoured might be the gift of a family name came by nature still stood hesitating like a about to make his hardly knowing whether to retreat or to when a figure came forth from the dark door of the tent it was that of a tall young man smoking he had an almost complexion with full lips badly though red and smooth above which was a well black moustache with curled points though his age could not be more than three or and twenty despite the touches of in his s there was a singular force in the gentleman s face and in his bold rolling eye well my beauty what can i do for you said the maiden he forward and perceiving that she stood confounded never mind me i am mr d have you come to see me or my mother this of a d and a differed even more from what had expected than the house and grounds had differed she had dreamed of 