The Rector of St. Marks

Arthur had been spending the evening at Prospect Hill. The Hethertons

had returned and would remain till after the fifteenth, and since they

had come the rector found it even pleasanter calling there than it had

been before, with only his bride-elect to entertain him. Sure of Dr.

Bellamy, Fanny had laid aside her sharpness, and was exceedingly witty

and brilliant, while, now that it was settled, the colonel was too

thoroughly a gentleman to be otherwise than gracious to his future

nephew; and Mrs. Hetherton was always polite and lady-like, so that

the rector looked forward with a good deal of interest to the evenings

he usually gave to Lucy, who, though satisfied to have him in her

sight, still preferred the olden time, when she had him all to herself

and was not disquieted with the fear that she did not know enough for

him, as she often was when she heard him talking with Fanny and her

uncle of things she did not understand.

This evening, however, the family were away and she received him

alone, trying so hard to come up to his capacity, talking so

intelligibly of books she had been reading and looking so lovely in

her winter crimson dress, besides being so sweetly affectionate and

confiding, that for once since his engagement Arthur was more than

content, and returned her modest caresses with a warmth he had not

felt before. He did love her, he said to himself, or, at least, he was

learning to love her very much; and when at last he took his leave,

and she went with him to the door, there was an unwonted tenderness in

his manner as he pushed her gently back, for the first snow of the

season was falling and the large flakes dropped upon her golden hair,

from which he brushed them carefully away.

"I cannot let my darling take cold," he said, and Lucy felt a strange

thrill of joy, for never before had he called her his darling, and

sometimes she had thought that the love she received was not as great

as the love she gave.

But she did not think so now, and in an ecstasy of joy she stood in

the deep recess of the bay window, watching him as he went away

through the moonlight and the feathery cloud of snow, wondering why,

when she was so happy, there could cling to her a haunted presentiment

that she and Arthur would never meet again just as they had parted.

Arthur, on the contrary, was troubled with no such presentiment. Of

Anna he hardly thought, or, if he did, the vision was obscured by the

fair picture he had seen standing in the door, with the snowflakes

resting in her hair like pearls in a golden coronet. And Arthur

thanked his God that he was beginning at last to feel right--that the

solemn vows that he was so soon to utter would be more than a mockery.