The Rector of St. Marks

As if thoughts of Mrs. Meredith reminded him of something else, the

rector took from the drawer of his writing table a letter received the

previous day, and, opening to the second page, read again as follows: "Are you going anywhere this summer? Of course not, for so long

as there is an unbaptized child, or a bed-ridden old woman in the

parish, you must stay at home, even if you do grow as rusty as

did Professor Cobden's coat before we boys made him a present of

a new one. I say, Arthur, there was a capital fellow spoiled when

you took to the ministry, with your splendid talents, and rare

gift for making people like and believe in you.

"Now, I suppose you will reply that for this denial of self you

look for your reward in heaven, and I suppose you are right; but

as I have no reason to think I have any stock in that region, I

go in for a good time here, and this summer I take it at

Saratoga, where I expect to meet one of your lambs. I hear you

have in your flock forty in all, their ages varying from fifteen

to fifty. But this particular lamb, Miss Anna Ruthven, is, I

fancy, the fairest of them all, and as I used to make you my

father confessor in the days when I was rusticated out in

Winsted, and fell so desperately in love with the six Miss

Larkins, each old enough to be my mother, so now I confide to you

the programme as marked out by Mrs. Julia Meredith, the general

who brings the lovely Anna into the field.

"We, that is, Mrs. Meredith and myself, are on the best of

terms. I lunch with her, dine with her, lounge in her parlors,

drive her to the park, take her to the operas, concerts and

plays, and compliment her good looks, which are wonderfully well

preserved for a woman of forty-five. I am twenty-six, you know,

and so no one ever associates us together in any kind of gossip.

She is the very quintessence of fashion, and I am one of the

danglers whose own light is made brighter by the reflection of

her rays. Do you see the point? Well, then, in return for my

attentions, she takes a very sisterly interest in my future wife,

and has adroitly managed to let me know of her niece, a certain

Anna Ruthven, who, inasmuch as I am tired of city belles, will

undoubtedly suit my fancy, said Anna being very fresh, very

artless, and very beautiful withal. She is also niece to Mrs.

Meredith, whose only brother married very far beneath him, when

he took to wife the daughter of a certain old-fashioned Captain

Humphreys, a pillar, no doubt, in your church. This young Ruthven

was drowned, or hung, or something, and the sister considers it

as another proof of his wife's lack of refinement and discretion

that at her death, which happened when Anna was three years old,

she left her child to the charge of her own parents, Captain

Humphreys and spouse, rather than to Mrs. Meredith's care, and

that, too, in the very face of the lady's having stood as sponsor

for the infant, an act which you will acknowledge was very

unnatural and ungrateful in Mrs. Ruthven, to say the least of it.