CHAPTER V.
'Bosom'd high in tufted trees.' It was breakfast time.
As seen from the vicarage dining-room, which took a warm tone of light from the fire, the weather and scene outside seemed to have stereotyped themselves in unrelieved shades of gray.

The long-armed trees and shrubs of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, were grayish black; those of the broad-leaved sort, together with the herbage, were grayish-green; the eternal hills and tower behind them were grayish-brown; the sky, dropping behind all, gray of the purest melancholy.
Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morning was not one which tended to lower the spirits.

It was even cheering.

For it did not rain, nor was rain likely to fall for many days to come.
Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire and was idly elevating a hand-screen before her face, when she heard the click of a little gate outside.
'Ah, here's the postman!' she said, as a shuffling, active man came through an opening in the shrubbery and across the lawn.

She vanished, and met him in the porch, afterwards coming in with her hands behind her back.
'How many are there?
Three for papa, one for Mr.Smith, none for Miss Swancourt.