Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1886-03-18
CHAPTER x

Returning to his office, Mr. Troy dis
covered, among the correspondence that was
waiting for him, a letter from the very per-
son whose welfare was still the uppermost
subject in his mind. Isabel Miller wrote in
these terms:
The LAWN SOUTH MORDEN. THURSDAY.
DEAR SIR: My aunt, Miss Pink, is very
desirous OF consulting you professionally at
the earliest opportunity. Although South
Morden is within little more than half an
hours railway ride from London, Miss Pink
does not presume to ask you to visit her,
being well aware of the value of your time
Will you, therefore, be SO kind as to let me
know when it viii be convenient to you to
receive my aunt at your office in Lon1ons
Believe NE, dear sir,
Respectfully yours,
ISABEL MILLER
Psi am further instructed to say that
the regretable event at Lady Lydiard's house
is the proposed subject of The consultation.
Mr. Troy smiled as he read the letter.
'Too formal for a young girl" he said TO
himself Every word of it has been die
tated by Miss Pink He was not long in
deciding what course he should lake. There
was pressing necessity for cautioning
Isabel, and here was mis- opportunity. HI
sent for his head clerk. and looked at his list
of engagements for the day. There was
nothing set down in the book which the clerk
was not quite as well able to manage as the
master. Mr.. Troy consulted his railway
guide, ordered his cab and caught the next
train to South Morden.
South Morden was then land remains to
this day one of those primitive agricultural
villages, passed over by the march of modern
progress, which are still to be found in the
near neighborhood of London. Only the
slow trains stopped at the station; and there
was so little to do that the station master
and his porter grew flowers on the embank-
ment, and trained creepers over the waiting
room window. Turning your back on the
railway, and walking along the one street of
South Morden, you found yourself in the old
England of two centuries since. Gabled
cottages. with fast-closad windows: pigs and
poultry in quiet possession of the road; the
venerable church surrounded by its shady
burial ground; the grocers shop which sold
everything, and the butchers shop which
sold nothing; the scarce inhabitants who
liked good look at stranger, and the I'M
washed children who were pictures of dirty
health: the clash of the iron-chained bucket
in the public well, and the thump of the fall
ing nine pins in the skittle ground behind the
public house; the horse pond on one bit OF
open ground and the old elm tree with the
wooden seat round it on the other-these
were some of the objects that you saw and
some of the noises that you heard in South
Morden, as you passed from one end of the
village to the other.
About half mile beyond the last of the
old cottages modern England met You again
under the form of row of little villas, set
up by an adventurous London builder who
had bought the land at bargain. Each
villa stood in its own little garden, and looked
across a stony road at the meadow lands
and softly rising wooded hills beyond Each
villa faced you in the sunshine with the hor-
rid glare of new red brick, and forced its
nonsensical name on your attention, traced
in bright paint on the posts of its entrance
gate. Consulting the pests as he advanced,
Mr. Troy arrived in due course cf time at
the villa called The Lawn. which derived its
name apparently from a circular patch OF
grass in front of the house. The gate resist
ing his efforts to open it, he rang the bell
Admitted by trim, clean, shy little maid