The Vicar's girl

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The house that stood on the edge of the moorland had a look of total remoteness, as if all within were quiet and ever would be so. White palings, newly-painted, surrounded the frontage and-reaching halfway around the back of the stone-built residence-gave way on either side to a barred gate which led into a paddock where a horse was grazing.

Reining in his own quiet nag, the Reverend Percival Jubstone wondered which of the two new inhabitants of Edgemoore, as it was aptly called, were at home. It would almost surely be Miss Vanessa Markham, he told himself, since her brother would be at his teaching post at this hour. Village gossip, which so often reached his ears via his housekeeper, told him that she was an attractive woman. He hoped it would be so and, having tethered his horse, took the path to the front door and drew upon the bell, hearing it jangle within.

Scarcely a moment passed before the door was opened by a young maid, cap askew and with a cloth in her hand.

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