'I do not believe there are any trees like ours,' exclaimed Dorothy Linley; and I think she ought to know, for she had lived with them all her life--not that it was a very long life either when our, or rather her story begins. She had scarcely seen a score of years; but things look bright and sharply defined seen through the clear atmosphere of youth. It was no wonder that she thought so on this afternoon as she stood at the open window, looking up the long avenue of pink-and-white horse-chestnuts, while the air was fragrant with the May from the tree on the lawn. It was not a mere afternoon tea, but the real meal that was laid in the Rectory drawing-room. In those days the article itself was costly but good, and they drank it out of tiny cups. Some had been handed down from a former generation and had no handles, others of more modern make had. Dorothy's mother was sitting at the table, surveying with a little pleased satisfaction its hospitable spread of country dainties prepared under her own eye, if not with her own hands. They were expecting a guest--Madam from the Hall. Mrs Linley's hands were never idle; the whole parish could bear witness to her 'notableness;' and her daughters were considered models of 'bringing up.'
'You would not have liked to live in the town where you were born, my dear,' she said in answer to Dorothy's exclamation; then suffering her work to drop into her lap, she looked beyond the slight figure at the window, away through the chestnuts, far back into the past. 'I thought as you do when first I walked up this avenue carrying you, an infant, in my arms. Your father and I had had a hard struggle--his means were so small as a curate, and he tried in vain to increase them by teaching--those were such terrible times; bread was almost at famine price; and I have sat with windows and doors bolted and barred, trembling to hear the people in the streets, for bread-riots were not uncommon. Everything was taxed, even the light that came in at the windows; so many of them were closed up, making the houses dark and gloomy. We could hardly believe it, when your father's cousin Kent Linley, whom he had not seen for years, wrote to say that the family "living" was vacant, and sooner than give it to a stranger, he offered it to him.'