the thoughts,-the dreams! But no more at present! I should like to talk with you on many matters some wild sweet morning, if you have no objection?"

Walden was amused. At the same time he was not very eager to respond to this overture of closer acquaintanceship with one who, by his dress, manner and method of speech, proclaimed himself a 'decadent' of the modern school of ethics; but he was nothing if not courteous. So he replied briefly :

"I shall be pleased to see you, of course, Mr. Adderley, but I must warn you that I am a very busy man-I should not be able to give you much time

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"No explanations-I understand!" And Adderley pressed his hand with enthusiasm. The very fact that you are busy in a village like this adds to the peculiar charm of your personality! It is so strange!-so new-so fresh!"

He smiled, and again pressed hands.

"Good-bye! The mood will send me to you at the fitting moment!"

He clapped his hat more firmly on his redundant red locks and clambered into the waiting waggonette. Sir Morton followed him, and the footman shut to the door of the vehicle with a bang as unnecessary as his master's previous 'Damn!'

"Good-morning, Mr. Walden!" then shouted the knight of bone-melting prowess; "Much obliged to you, I'm sure!"

Walden raised his hat with brief ceremoniousness, and then as the carriage rolled away addressed the Reverend Mr. Leveson, who was throwing himself with hippopotamus-like agility across his bicycle.

"You follow, I suppose?"

"Yes. I'm lunching at Badsworth Hall. The Duke wants to consult me about his family records. You know I'm a bit of an authority on such points!"

Walden smiled.

"I believe you are! But mind you calendar the ducal deeds carefully," he said. "A slip in the lineal descent of the Lumptons might affect the whole prestige of the British Empire!"

A light shone in his clear blue eyes,-a flashing spark of battle. Leveson stayed his bicycle a moment, wobbling on it uneasily.

Lumpton goes back a good way," he said airily; "I shall take him up when I have gone through the history of the

Vancourts. I'm on that scent now. I shall make a good bit of business directly Miss Vancourt returns; she'll pay for anything that will help her to stiffen her back and put more side on."

"Really!" ejaculated Walden, coldly. "I should have. thought her forebears would have saved her from snobbery."

"Not a bit of it!" declared Leveson, beginning to start the muscles of his grand-pianoforte legs with energy; “Rapid as a firework, and vain as a peacock! Ta!"

And fixing a small cap firmly on the back of his very large head, he worked his wheel with treadmill regularity and was soon out of sight.

Walden stood alone in the churchyard, lost for a brief space in meditation. The solemn strains of the organ which the schoolmistress was still playing, floated softly out from the church to the perfumed air, and the grave melodious murmur made an undercurrent of harmony to the clear bright warbling of a skylark, which, beating its wings against the sunbeams, rose ever higher and higher above him.

"What petty souls we are!" he murmured; "Here am I feeling actually indignant because this fellow Leveson, who has less education and knowledge than my dog Nebbie, assumes to have some acquaintance with Miss Vancourt! What does it matter? What business is it of mine? If she cares to accept information from an ignoramus, what is it to do with me? Nothing! Yet,-what a blatant ass the fellow is! Upon my word, it does me good to say it-a blatant ass! And Sir Morton Pippitt is another!"

He laughed, and lifting his hat from his forehead, let the soft wind breathe refreshing coolness on his uncovered hair. "There are decided limits to Christian love!" he said, the laughter still dancing in his eyes. "I defy-I positively defy anyone to love Leveson! The columns and capitals are all wrong' are they?" And he gave a glance back at the beautiful little church in its exquisite design and completed perfection. Out of keeping with early Norman walls!" Wise Leveson! He ignores all periods of transition as if they had never existed-as if they had no meaning for the thinker as well as the architect-as if the movement upward from the Norman to the Early Pointed style showed no indication of progress! And whereas a church should always be a veritable sermon in stone' expressive of the various generations that have wrought their best on it, he limits himself to the begin

ning of things! I wonder what Leveson was in the beginning of things? Possibly an embryo Megatherium!"

Broadly smiling, he walked to the gate communicating with his own garden, opened it, and passed through. Nebbie was waiting for him on the lawn, and greeted him with the usual effusiveness. He returned to his desk, and to the composition of his sermon, but his thoughts were inclined to wander. Sir Morton Pippitt, the Duke of Lumpton, and Lord Mawdenham hovered before him like three dull puppets in a cheap show; and he was inclined to look up the name of Marius Longford in one of the handy guides to contemporary biography, in order to see if that flaccid and fish-like personage had really done anything in the world to merit his position as a shining luminary of the 'Savage and Savile.' Accustomed as he was to watch the ebb and flow of modern literature, he had not yet sighted either the Longford straw or the Adderley cork, among the flotsam and jetsam of that murky tide. And ever and again Sir Morton Pippitt's coarse chuckle, combined with the covert smiles of Sir Morton's 'distinguished' friends, echoed through his mind in connection with the approaching dreaded invasion of Miss Vancourt into the happy quietude of the village of St. Rest, till he experienced a sense of pain and aversion almost amounting to anger. Why, he asked himself, seeing she had stayed so long away from her childhood's home, could she not have stayed away altogether? The swift and brilliant life of London was surely far more suited to one who, according to 'Putty' Leveson, was rapid as a firework, and vain as a peacock.' But was 'Putty' Leveson always celebrated for accuracy in his statements? No! Certainly not-yet

Then something seemed to fire him with a sudden resolution, for he erased the first lines of the sermon he had begun, and altered his text, which had been: "Glory, honour and peace to every man that worketh good." And in its place he chose, as a more enticing subject of discourse:

"The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God, of great price."

V

THE warm bright weather continued. Morning after morning dawned in unclouded sunshine, and when Saturday concluded the first five days of the 'May-moneth,' the inhabitants of St. Rest were disposed to concede that it was just possible they might have what they called 'a spell of fair weather.' Saturday was the general'cleaning-up day' in the village the day when pails of water were set out in unexpected places for the unwary to trip over; when the old flagstones poured with soapsuds that trickled over the toes of too-hasty passers-by; when cottage windows were violently squirted at with the aid of garden-syringes and hose,-and when Adam Frost, the sexton, was always to be found meditating, and even surreptitiously drinking beer, in a quiet corner of the churchyard, because he was afraid to go home, owing to the persistent housewifely energy of his better half, who 'washed down' everything, 'cleaned out' everything, and had, as she forcibly expressed it, 'the Sunday meals on her mind.' It was a day, too, when Bainton, released from his gardening duties at the rectory at noon, took a thoughtful stroll by himself, aware that his 'Missis' was scrubbing the kitchen, and 'wouldn't have him muckin' about,'-and when John Walden, having finished his notes for the Sunday's sermon, felt a sense of ease and relief, and considered himself at liberty to study purely Pagan literature, such as The Cratylus of Plato. But on this special Saturday he was not destined to enjoy complete relaxation. Mrs. Spruce had sent an urgent appeal to him to kindly step up to the Manor in the afternoon.' And Mrs. Spruce's husband, a large, lumbering, simple-faced old fellow, in a brown jacket and corduroys, had himself come with the message, and having delivered it, stood on Walden's threshold, cap in hand, waiting for a reply. John surveyed his awkward, peasant-like figure with a sense of helplessness,excuses and explanations he knew would be utterly lost on an almost deaf man. Submitting to fate, he nodded his head vigorously, and spoke as loudly as he judged needful.

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All right, Spruce! Say I'll come!"

"Jes' what I told her, sir," answered Spruce, in a remarkably gentle tone; "It's a bit okkard, but if she doos her dooty, no 'arm can 'appen, no matter if it's all the riches of the yearth.” John felt more helpless than ever. What was the man talking about? He drew closer and spoke in a more emphatic key.

"Look here, Spruce! Tell your wife I'll come after luncheon. Do you hear? Af-ter lun-cheon!" Spruce put one hand to his ear and smiled blandly.

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are

Ezackly, sir! I quite agrees with ye; but women allus a bit worrity-like, and of course there's a deal to do, and she got frightened with the keys, and when she saw them fine clothes, and what not, so I drawed her a glass of cherrycordial, an' sez I, 'Now, old 'ooman,' sez I, 'don't skeer yerself into fits. I'll fetch the passon to ye.' And with that, she seemed easier in her mind. Lord love ye!-it's a great thing to fetch the passon at once when there's anything a bit wrong. So, if you'd step up, sir?"

Driven almost to despair, Walden put his lips close to the old man's obstinate ear.

"( Yes," he bellowed-" af-ter lun-cheon! Yes! Ye-es!" His reply at last penetrated the closed auricular doors of Spruce's brain.

66 Thank you, kindly, sir, I'm sure," he said, still in the same meek and quiet tone. "And if I might make so bold, sir, seein' there's likely to be changes up at the Manor, if it should be needful to speak for me and my old 'ooman, p'raps you'd be so good, sir? We wouldn't like to leave the old place now, sir"

His soft, hesitating voice faltered, and he suddenly brushed his hand across his poor dim eyes. The pathos of this hint was not lost on Walden, who, forgetting all his own momentary irritation, rose manfully to the occasion and roared down the old man's ears like one of the far-famed 'Bulls of Bashan.'

"Don't worry!" he yelled, his face becoming rapidly crimson with his efforts; "I'll see you all right! You sha'n't leave the Manor if I can prevent it! I'll speak for you! Cheer up! Do you hear! Cheer up!"

Spruce heard very clearly this time, and smiled.

"Thank you, Passon! God bless you! I'm sure you'll help us, if so be the lady is a hard one

He trusted himself to say no more, but with a brief respectful salutation, put on his cap and turned away.

Left alone, Walden drew a long breath, and wiped his brow.