Chapter 2 - Page 2

it. The news brought peace to the hearts of the Williams
sisters. They had lived with a settled conviction that
some wild impossible colony, some shouting, singing
family of madcaps, would break in upon their peace.
This establishment at least was irreproachable. A
reference to "Men of the Time" showed them that Admiral
Hay Denver was a most distinguished officer, who had
begun his active career at Bomarsund, and had ended it at
Alexandria, having managed between these two episodes to
see as much service as any man of his years. From the
Taku Forts and the _Shannon_ brigade, to dhow-harrying
off Zanzibar, there was no variety of naval work which
did not appear in his record; while the Victoria Cross,
and the Albert Medal for saving life, vouched for it that
in peace as in war his courage was still of the same true
temper. Clearly a very eligible neighbor this, the more
so as they had been confidentially assured by the estate
agent that Mr. Harold Denver, the son, was a most quiet
young gentleman, and that he was busy from morning to
night on the Stock Exchange.

The Hay Denvers had hardly moved in before number two
also struck its placard, and again the ladies found that
they had no reason to be discontented with their
neighbors. Doctor Balthazar Walker was a very well-known
name in the medical world. Did not his qualifications,
his membership, and the record of his writings fill a
long half-column in the "Medical Directory," from his
first little paper on the "Gouty Diathesis" in 1859 to
his exhaustive treatise upon "Affections of the
Vaso-Motor System" in 1884? A successful medical career
which promised to end in a presidentship of a college and
a baronetcy, had been cut short by his sudden inheritance
of a considerable sum from a grateful patient, which had
rendered him independent for life, and had enabled him to
turn his attention to the more scientific part of his
profession, which had always had a greater charm for him
than its more practical and commercial aspect. To this
end he had given up his house in Weymouth Street, and had
taken this opportunity of moving himself, his scientific
instruments, and his two charming daughters (he had been
a widower for some years) into the more peaceful
atmosphere of Norwood.

There was thus but one villa unoccupied, and it was
no wonder that the two maiden ladies watched with a keen
interest, which deepened into a dire apprehension, the
curious incidents which heralded the coming of the new
tenants. They had already learned from the agent that
the family consisted of two only, Mrs. Westmacott, a
widow, and her nephew, Charles Westmacott. How simple
and how select it had sounded! Who could have foreseen