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'
'I suppose they are gone by this time,' said Anne, as Lady Merton
left the room, and she sat down to her desk to write to her brother.


CHAPTER II.

Abbeychurch St. Mary's was a respectable old town, situated at the
foot of St. Austin's Hill, a large green mound of chalk, named from
an establishment of Augustine Friars, whose monastery (now converted
into alms-houses) and noble old church were the pride of the county.
Abbeychurch had been a quiet dull place, scarcely more than a large
village, until the days of railroads, when the sober inhabitants, and
especially the Vicar and his family, were startled by the news that
the line of the new Baysmouth railway was marked out so as to pass
exactly through the centre of the court round which the alms-houses
were built. Happily, however, the difficulty of gaining possession
of the property required for this course, proved too great even for
the railway company, and they changed the line, cutting their way
through the opposite side of St. Austin's Hill, and spoiling three or
four water-meadows by the river.


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