he last rays of the setting sun reflected red in the tiny windows of the snug cottage nestling in its sheltered hollow, and seemed to set the honeysuckle that grew around its door aflame. Never had it looked more homely or beautiful to the young girl standing in the gateway, shading her eyes from the glare. Now that she must leave it, it was inexpressibly dear to her, for she had lived here all her eighteen years, and could not envisage life anywhere else.
Patience’s father, James Kilpatrick, had been steward to Squire Griffin for twenty years, and had lived in Honeysuckle Cottage for all of them. It was a tied cottage, and Patience and her mama had stayed on there since his death six years earlier, only upon the beneficence of the squire, who had had a new house built for James’ successor, a man dominated by a large wife and numerous offspring. His eldest son, a strapping young man of some twenty summers, was to be the new incumbent at the cottage, having recently wed one of the maids at the manor, and Mrs Griffin had been only too happy to bestow Patience’s home upon him, in order to remove from the sphere of her only son and heir one whom she considered to be so far beneath him as to preclude his even acknowledging her existence. Unfortunately, Tom Griffin was not of her opinion, for he regarded Patience in the light of a sister, having shared his lessons with her, extricated her from the scrapes into which he had invariably led her, and protected her from her more robust contemporaries.
Mrs Griffin had strenuously resisted the idea of Patience taking lessons with her son, but for once the squire had been obstinate, for it was obvious that young Tom, no scholar, learned far more readily in competition with a mere girl, and the tutor had nothing but praise for her intelligence and industry, often