The Rector of St. Marks

"You see I am telling you all this, just as if you did not know

Miss Anna's antecedents even better than myself, but possibly you

do not know that, having arrived at a suitable age, she is this

summer to be introduced into society at Saratoga, while I am

expected to fall in love with her at once and make her Mrs.

Hastings before another winter. Now, in your straightforward way

of putting things, don't imagine that Mrs. Meredith has

deliberately told me all this, for she has not, but I understand

her perfectly, and know exactly what she expects me to do.

Whether I do or not depends partly upon how I like Miss Anna,

partly upon how she likes me, and partly upon yourself.

"Now, Arthur, you know, I was always famous for presentiments or

fancies, as you termed them, and the latest of these is that you

like Anna Ruthven. Do you? Tell me, honor bright, and by the

memory of the many scrapes you got me out of, and the many more

you kept me from getting into, I will treat Miss Anna as gingerly

and brotherly as if she was already your wife. I like her

picture, which I have seen, and believe I shall like the girl,

but if you say that by looking at her with longing eyes I shall

be guilty of breaking some one of the ten commandments--I don't

know which--why, then, hands off at once. That's fair, and will

prove to you that, although not a parson like yourself, there is

still a spark of honor, if not of goodness, in the breast of "Yours truly,

"THORNTON HASTINGS.

"If you were here this afternoon, I'd take you to drive after a

pair of bays which are to sweep the stakes at Saratoga this

summer, and I'd treat you to a finer cigar than often finds its

way to Hanover. Shall I send you out a box, or would your people

pull down the church about the ears of a minister wicked enough

to smoke? Again adieu.

"T. H."

There was a half-amused smile on the face of the rector as he

finished the letter, so like its thoughtless, lighthearted writer, and

wondered what the Widow Rider, across the way, would say of a

clergyman who smoked cigars and rode after a race-horse with such a

gay scapegrace as Thornton Hastings. Then the amused look passed away,

and was succeeded by a shadow of pain as the rector remembered the

real import of Thornton's letter, and felt that he had no right to

say, "I have a claim on Anna Ruthven; you must not interfere." For he

had no claim on her, though half his parishioners, and many outside

his parish, had long ago given her to him, and said that she was

worthy; while he had loved her, as only natures like his can love,

since that week before Christmas, when their hands had met with a

strange, tremulous flutter, as together they fastened the wreaths of

evergreen upon the wall, he holding them up and she driving the

refractory tacks, which would keep falling in spite of her, so that

his hand went often from the carpet or basin to hers, and once

accidentally closed almost entirely over the little, soft, white

thing, which felt so warm to his touch.