The Rector of St. Marks

"I am not in orders yet, so let me be Arthur to you. I love to hear

you call me so, and you to me shall be Lucy," was his reply.

A mutual clasp of hands had sealed the compact, and that was the

nearest to love-making of anything which had passed between them, if

we except the time when he had said good-by, and wiped away a tear

which came unbidden to her eye as she told him how lonely she would be

without him.

Hers was a nature as transparent as glass, and the young man, who for

days had paced the ship's deck so moodily, was fighting back the

thoughts which had whispered that in his intercourse with her he had

not been all guiltless, and that if in her girlish heart there was a

feeling for him stronger than that of friendship he had helped to give

it life.

Time and absence and Anna Ruthven had obliterated all such thoughts

till now, when Lucy herself had brought them back again with her

winsome ways, and her evident intention to begin just where they had

left off.

"Let Anna tell me yes, and I will at once proclaim our engagement,

which will relieve me from all embarrassments in that quarter," the

clergyman was thinking, just as his housekeeper came up, bringing him

two notes--one in a strange handwriting, and the other in the

graceful, running hand which he recognized as Lucy Harcourt's.

This he opened first, reading as follows: Prospect Hill, June--.

"MR. LEIGHTON: Dear Sir--Cousin Fanny is to have a picnic down

in the west woods to-morrow afternoon, and she requests the

pleasure of your presence. Mrs. Meredith and Miss Ruthven are to

be invited. Do come.

"Yours truly,

"LUCY."

Yes, he would go, and if Anna's answer had not come before, he would

ask her for it. There would be plenty of opportunities down in those

deep woods. On the whole, it would be pleasanter to hear the answer

from her own lips, and see the blushes on her cheeks when he tried to

look into her eyes.

The imaginative rector could almost see those eyes, and feel the touch

of her hand as he took the other note--the one which Mrs. Meredith had

shut herself in her bedroom to write, and sent slyly by Valencia, who

was to tell no one where she had been.

A gleam of intelligence shot from Valencia's eyes as she took the note

and carried it safely to the parsonage, never yielding to the

temptation to read it, just as she had read the one abstracted from

the book, returning it when read to her mistress's pocket, where she

had found it while the family were at church.

Mrs. Meredith's note was as follows: "MY DEAR MR. LEIGHTON: It is my niece's wish that I answer the

letter you were so kind as to inclose in the book left for her

last Saturday. She desires me to say that, though she has a very

great regard for you as her clergyman and friend, she cannot be

your wife, and she regrets exceedingly if she has in any way led

you to construe the interest she has always manifested in you

into a deeper feeling.