The Rector of St. Marks

"Are you displeased with me, Arthur?" she continued, her eyes filling

with tears as she saw the grave expression on his face. "Have I done

anything wrong? I am so sorry if I have."

Her voice had in it the grieved tones of a little child, and her eyes

were very bright, with the tears, quivering on her long silken lashes.

Leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, a

position he always assumed when puzzled and perplexed, the rector

looked at her a moment before he spoke. He could not define to himself

the nature of the interest he took in Lucy Harcourt. He admired her

greatly, and the self-denials and generous exertions she had made to

be of use to him since Anna went away had touched a tender chord and

made her seem very near to him.

Habit with him was everything, and the past two weeks' isolation had

shown him how necessary she had become to him. She did not satisfy his

higher wants as Anna Ruthven had done. No one could ever do that, but

she amused, and soothed, and rested him, and made his duties lighter

by taking half of them upon herself. That she was more attached to him

than he could wish, he greatly feared, for, since Captain Humphreys'

visit, he had seen matters differently from what he saw them before,

and had unsparingly questioned himself as to how far he would be

answerable for her future weal or woe.

"Guilty, verily, I am guilty, in leading her on, if I meant nothing by

it," he had written against himself, pausing in his sermon to write it

just as Lucy came in, appealing so prettily to him to know why he had

neglected her so long. She was very beautiful this morning, and Arthur

felt his heart beat rapidly as he looked at her, and thought most any

man who had never known Anna Ruthven would be glad to gather that

bright creature in his own arms and know she was his own. One long,

long sigh to the memory of all he had hoped for once--one bitter pang

as he remembered Anna and that twilight hour in the church and then he

made a mad plunge in the dark and said: "Lucy, do you know people are beginning to talk about my seeing you so

much?"

"Well, let them talk. Who cares?" Lucy replied, with a good deal of

asperity of manner for her, for that very morning the old housekeeper

at Prospect Hill had ventured to remonstrate with her for "running

after the parson." "Pray, where is the wrong? What harm can come of

it?" and she tossed her head pettishly.

"None, perhaps," Arthur replied, "if one could keep his affections

under control. But if either of us should learn to love the other very

much, and the love was not reciprocated, harm would surely come of

that. At least, that was the view Captain Humphreys took of the matter

when he was speaking to me about it."