CHAPTER II.
HOPE WAYNE.
When there was a report that Mr.Savory Gray was coming to Delafield to establish a school for boys, Dr.Peewee, the minister of the village, called to communicate the news to Mr.Christopher Burt, his oldest and richest parishioner, at Pine wood, his country seat.

When Mr.Burt heard the news, he foresaw trouble without end; for his orphan grand-daughter, Hope Wayne, who lived with him, was nearly eighteen years old; and it had been his fixed resolution that she should be protected from the wicked world of youth that is always going up and down in the earth seeking whom it may marry.

If incessant care, and invention, and management could secure it, she should arrive safely where Grandpa Burt was determined she should arrive ultimately, at the head of her husband's dinner-table, Mrs.Simcoe, ma'am.
Mrs.Simcoe was Mr.Burt's housekeeper.

So far as any body could say, Mrs.Burt died at a period of which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

There were traditions of other housekeepers.