The Rector of St. Marks

"Whatever I have left at my death I shall leave to you," she said;

"consequently you will pass as an heiress expectant, and with all

these aids I confidently expect you to make a brilliant match before

the winter season closes, if, indeed, you do not before you leave

Saratoga."

"Oh, aunt," Anna exclaimed, her brown eyes flashing with unwonted

brilliancy, and the rich color mantling her cheek. "You surely are not

taking me to Saratoga on such a shameful errand as that?"

"Shameful errand as what?" Mrs. Meredith asked, looking quickly up,

while Anna replied: "Trying to find a husband. I cannot go if you are, much as I have

anticipated it. I should despise and hate myself forever. No, aunt, I

cannot go."

"Nonsense, child. You don't know what you are saying," Mrs. Meredith

retorted, feeling intuitively that she must change her tactics and

keep her real intentions concealed if she would lead her niece into

the snare laid for her.

Cunningly and carefully for the next half hour she talked, telling

Anna that she was not to be thrust upon the notice of any one--that

she herself had no patience with those intriguing mammas who push

their bold daughters forward, but that as a good marriage was the

_ultima thule_ of a woman's hopes, it was but natural that she, as

Anna's aunt, should wish to see her well settled in life, and settled,

too, near herself, where they could see each other every day.

"Of course, there is no one in Hanover whom you, as a Ruthven, would

stoop to marry," she said, fixing her eyes inquiringly upon Anna, who

was pulling to pieces the wild flowers she had gathered, and thinking

of that twilight hour when she had talked with their young clergyman

as she never talked before. Of the many times, too, when they had met

in the cottages of the poor, and he had walked slowly home with her,

lingering by the gate, as if loth to say good-by, she thought, and the

life she had lived since he first came to Hanover, and she learned to

blush when she met the glance of his eye, looked fairer far than the

life her aunt, had marked out as the proper one for a Ruthven.

"You have not told me yet. Is there any one in Hanover whom you think

worthy of you?" Mrs. Meredith asked, just as a footstep was heard, and

the rector of St. Mark's came round the rock where they were sitting.

He had called at the farmhouse, bringing the letter, and with it a

book of poetry, of which Anna had asked the loan.

Taking advantage of her guest's absence, Grandma Humphreys had gone to

a neighbor's after a recipe for making a certain kind of cake of which

Mrs. Meredith was very fond, and only Esther, the servant, and

Valencia, the smart waiting maid, without whom Mrs. Meredith never

traveled, were left in charge.