Eliza opened the gate beside it and turned up the cart road, walking on its grassy edge, concealed from the house by ragged lilac trees.

She preferred this to-day to the open path leading to the central door.

This road brought her to the end of the long front verandah.

Here she perceived voices from the sitting-room, and, listening, thought she heard Principal Trenholme talking.

She went on past the gable of the house into the yard, a sloping straggling bit of ground, enclosed on three sides by the house and its additions of dairies and stables, and on the fourth side bounded by the river.