CHAPTER III.
"How like a prodigal doth she return, With over-weathered ribs and ragged sails." _Merchant of Venice_.
"_Mer._ What are these?
_Uncle._ The tenants." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER .-- _Wit without Money_.
IT was just two years from the night in which Alice had been torn from the cottage: and at that time Maltravers was wandering amongst the ruins of ancient Egypt, when, upon the very lawn where Alice and her lover had so often loitered hand in hand, a gay party of children and young people were assembled.

The cottage had been purchased by an opulent and retired manufacturer.

He had raised the low thatched roof another story high--and blue slate had replaced the thatch--and the pretty verandahs overgrown with creepers had been taken down because Mrs.Hobbs thought they gave the rooms a dull look; and the little rustic doorway had been replaced by four Ionic pillars in stucco; and a new dining-room, twenty-two feet by eighteen, had been built out at one wing, and a new drawing-room had been built over the new dining-room.

And the poor little cottage looked quite grand and villa-like.

The fountain had been taken away, because it made the house damp; and there was such a broad carriage-drive from the gate to the house! The gate was no longer the modest green wooden gate, ever ajar with its easy latch; but a tall, cast-iron, well-locked gate, between two pillars to match the porch.
And on one of the gates was a brass plate, on which was graven, "Hobbs' Lodge--Ring the bell." The lesser Hobbses and the bigger Hobbses were all on the lawn--many of them fresh from school--for it was the half-holiday of a Saturday afternoon.