This is the sign which means "Zack." The girl smiles brightly, and blushes as she sees it.

Zack is apparently one of her special favorites.
While the young gentleman is being admitted at the garden gate, there is a leisure moment to explain how he became acquainted with Mr.Blyth.
Valentine's father, and Mrs.Thorpe's father (the identical Mr.
Goodworth who figures at the beginning of this narrative as one of the actors in the Sunday Drama at Baregrove Square), had been intimate associates of the drowsy-story-telling and copious-port-drinking old school.

The friendly intercourse between these gentlemen spread, naturally enough, to the sons and daughters who formed their respective families.

From the time of Mr.Thorpe's marriage to Miss Goodworth, however, the connection between the junior Goodworths and Blyths began to grow less intimate--so far, at least, as the new bride and Valentine were concerned.

The rigid modern Puritan of Baregrove Square, and the eccentric votary of the Fine Arts, mutually disapproved of each other from the very first.