If a member of the household appeared at the door it was with a countenance of abstraction and concern.
Evening began to bend over the scene; and the other inhabitants of the hamlet came out to draw water, their common well being in the public road opposite the garden and house of the Paddocks.

Having wound up their bucketsfull respectively they lingered, and spoke significantly together.
From their words any casual listener might have gathered information of what had occurred.
The woodman who lived nearest the site of the story told most of the tale.

Selina, the daughter of the Paddocks opposite, had been surprised that afternoon by receiving a letter from her once intended husband, then a corporal, but now a sergeant-major of dragoons, whom she had hitherto supposed to be one of the slain in the Battle of the Alma two or three years before.
'She picked up wi'en against her father's wish, as we know, and before he got his stripes,' their informant continued.

'Not but that the man was as hearty a feller as you'd meet this side o' London.

But Jacob, you see, wished her to do better, and one can understand it.