This, then, was the Widow Layton who with her little one and nurse had sought our village, immediately after the decease of her husband, as a peaceful asylum from the noise and tumult of a world where, in happier days, she had played so conspicuous a part. It was not so much that she sedulously avoided all mention of her past history to the eager questioners around her, from a disinclination that it should be known, as that she little understood the character of the villagers themselves--ofttimes mistaking a really well-meant interest in her welfare for an idle and impertinent curiosity. Mrs. Layton had been highly born and nurtured, and there seemed to her delicate mind a something rude and unfeeling in the manner with which her too officious friends and neighbors would touch upon the sources of grief which were to her so sacred. And therefore, perhaps unwisely, she held herself aloof from them, replying to their different queries with that calm and easy dignity which effectually precluded all approach to familiarity, and engendered a dislike in the minds of those who were little accustomed to meet one who could not enter into all their feelings, plans and projects--which dislike was constantly kept alive and fostered by the united exertions of the two sister spinsters. Good Mrs. Jeffries, too, the fond old nurse who had never left her beloved mistress through all her varying fortunes, was all too faithful and true to reveal aught that that kind mistress might wish untold; and thus it was that the curiosity of the good people of Aberdeen was kept continually in check, and about the unsuspecting inmates of Woodbine Cottage was thrown a mystery that was becoming constantly augmented by their incomprehensible silence on the subject.