Wingfolds and Drakes believed in, with whom humiliation was a condition
of acceptance!

She told the Drakes that, for the air of Owlkirk, she was going to
occupy her old quarters with Mrs. Puckridge during the holidays. They
were not much surprised, for they had remarked a change in her manner,
and it was not long unexplained: for, walking from the Old House
together one evening rather late, they met her with the doctor in a
little frequented part of the park. When she left them, they knew she
would not return; and her tears betrayed that she knew it also.

Meantime the negotiation for the purchase of the Old House of Glaston
was advancing with slow legal sinuosity. Mr. Drake had offered the full
value of the property, and the tender seemed to be regarded not
unfavorably. But his heart and mind were far more occupied with the
humbler property he had already secured in the town: that was now to be
fortified against the incursions of the river, with its attendant fevers
and agues. A survey of the ground had satisfied him that a wall at a
certain point would divert a great portion of the water, and this wall
he proceeded at once to build. He hoped in the end to inclose the ground
altogether, or at least to defend it at every assailable point, but
there were many other changes imperative, with difficulties such that
they could not all be coped with at once. The worst of the cottages must
be pulled down, and as they were all even over-full, he must contrive to
build first. Nor until that was done, could he effect much toward
rendering the best of them fit for human habitation.

Some of the householders in the lower part of the adjoining street shook
their heads when they saw what the bricklayers were about. They had
reason to fear they were turning the water more upon them; and it seemed