Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

The book uses em-dashes as ellipses at the ends of sentences. These have been left spaced as in the original text.

By the Same Author:

Wymps: Fairy Tales. With eight coloured illustrations by Mrs. Percy Dearmer.

At the Relton Arms: A Novel.

The Making of a School-Girl.

THE
MAKING OF A PRIG

BY
EVELYN SHARP

JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1897

Copyright, 1897,
By John Lane.
All rights reserved.

University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

The Making of a Prig

CHAPTER I

It was supper time at the Rectory, and the Rector had not come in. There were two conflicting elements at the Rectory, the Rector's disregard of details and his sister's sense of their importance. There was only one will, however, and that was his sister's. So the meals were always punctual, and the Rector was always late; a fact that by its very recurrence would have long ceased to be important, had not Miss Esther loved to accentuate it by a certain formula of complaint that varied as little as the offence itself. This evening, however, he was later than usual; and Miss Esther did not attempt to conceal her impatience as she glanced from the old clock in the corner down to the fire-place, where another familiar grievance awaited her.

"Katharine, how often have I told you not to lie on the rug like a great boy?" she said querulously, in the tone of one who has not the courage or the character to be really angry. She added immediately, "I want you to ring the bell for the soup."

The girl on the floor rolled over lazily, and shut her book with a bang.

"Daddy hasn't come in yet," she said, sitting up on her heels and shaking the hair out of her eyes. A latent spirit of revolt was in her tone, although she spoke half absently, as if her thoughts were still with her book. Miss Esther tapped her foot on the ground impatiently.

"It is exactly two minutes to eight," she said sharply. "I asked you to ring the bell, Katharine."

The girl walked across the room in a leisurely manner, and did as she was told with a great assumption of doing as she wished. Then she sat on the arm of the nearest chair, and the rebellious look returned to her face.

"How do you know it is daddy's fault, Aunt Esther? The Stoke road is awfully bad, and it's blowing hard from the north-west. He may have been kept, and cold soup's beastly. I think it's a shame."

"I really wish," complained Miss Esther, "that you would try and control your expressions, Katharine. It all comes of your romping so much with young Morton. Of course I am a mere cipher in my own house; but some day your father will be sorry that he did not listen to me in time. Can you never remember that you are not a boy?"

"I am not likely to forget," muttered Katharine. "I should not be sticking in this stupid old place if I were. I should be working hard for daddy, so that he could live with his books and be happy, instead of grinding his life away for people who only want to get all they can out of him. What's the use of being a girl? Things are so stupidly arranged, it seems to me!"

"My dear," said Miss Esther, who had only caught the end of her speech, "it is difficult to believe that your father is one of God's chosen ministers."

"But he isn't," objected Katharine. "That's just it. They made him go into the church because there was a family living; so how on earth could he have been chosen? Why, you told me so yourself, Aunt Esther! It's all rubbish about being chosen, isn't it?"

"Don't chatter so much," said Miss Esther, who was counting her stitches; and Katharine sighed petulantly.

"I can't think," she went on to herself, "how he was ever weak enough to give in. He must have been absent-minded when they ordained him, and never discovered it until afterwards! Don't you think so, Dorcas?"

But Dorcas, who had only just brought in the soup, was hardly in a position to make the necessary reply; and Katharine had to content herself with laughing softly at her own joke. The meal passed almost in silence, and they had nearly finished before they heard the sound of wheels on the wet gravel outside. Miss Esther looked up, and listened with her chronic air of disapproval.

"Dear me," she sighed, "your father has driven round to the stable again by mistake. What are you doing, Katharine? I was just going to say grace."

But Katharine had already dispensed with the ceremony by vanishing through the door that led into the kitchen; and Miss Esther hurried over it alone, and managed to be seated in her chair near the reading-lamp, upright and occupied, by the time her brother came into the room. There was something pathetic in the way she elaborated her little methods of reproach for the sake of one on whom the small things in life made no impression at all. And when the Rector entered, smiling happily, with Katharine hanging on his arm and whispering eager questions into his ear, it was easy to see that his mind was occupied by something far more engrossing than the fact that he was late for supper. But Miss Esther preserved her look of injury, and the Rector, who was making futile efforts to produce a paper parcel from the pocket in his coat tails, suddenly gave up the attempt as he caught sight of her, and began to smooth his sleek white hair with a nervous hand.

"Yes, Esther," he said, although she had not spoken a word.

"We have sent away the soup, but there is some cold meat on the side, I believe. Katharine, do be seated instead of romping round the room like that! Your father can see to himself," was all that Miss Esther said.

"Yes, Esther," said the Rector submissively; and he helped himself to some apple pie, and sat thoughtfully with the knife in his hand until Katharine came and replaced it with a fork. "It is a windy night," he continued, as no one seemed inclined to say anything. Miss Esther was waiting for her opportunity, and Katharine had caught the infection of her mood, and was again absorbed in her book on the hearthrug.

"Tom Eldridge came up about his dying wife, and Jones's baby is no better," said Miss Esther, presently.

"Dear, dear! how very unfortunate!" observed the Rector, smiling.

"I said you must have been detained unexpectedly," continued Miss Esther, with more emphasis. "They seemed very much in want of a little counsel."

"I'm certain they weren't," said Katharine audibly. "Eldridge wanted some more port wine, and Mrs. Jones came to see what she could get. And I don't fancy either of them got it."

"Very unfortunate!" said the Rector again. "I was certainly detained, Esther, as you cleverly divined,—unavoidably detained."

"People," said Miss Esther, very distinctly, "who have spiritual brothers and sisters depending upon them, have no right to be detained."

"I never can think," put in Katharine, "how any one has the courage to be a clergyman. It simply means having crowds of relations, dull, sordid, grasping relations, who come and rob you systematically in the name of the Lord."

"A spiritual man," continued Miss Esther, without heeding the interruption, "is not—"

"Oh, auntie," implored Katharine, "do let daddy eat his supper in peace."

"My child," interposed the Rector gently, "I have finished my supper. Does Eldridge expect me to do anything to-night, Esther? Or Mrs. Jones?"

"My dear Cyril," said Miss Esther sternly, "if your own instincts do not prompt you to do anything, I should say they had better go untended."

The Rector sighed, and played with his knife. He was looking like a schoolboy in disgrace. Katharine gave a scornful little laugh.

"What is the good of making all that fuss over a trifle? Just as though the cough of Jones's baby were half as important as the genuine rat-tail daddy has picked up at Walker's!"

The murder was out, and Miss Esther put down her knitting and prepared for a characteristic outburst. But the Rector had already unwrapped his treasure and placed it on the table before him, and her bitterest reproaches fell unheeded on his ears.

"Genuine sixteenth century," he murmured, as he stroked it reverently with his long, thin fingers.

"Only yesterday," said the strident voice of his sister, "you were telling me you had no money for a soup kitchen. It was a poor living, you said; and now— How can you set such an example,—you with a mission in life?"

"I vow I'll never have a mission in life," said Katharine, "if it means giving up everything that makes one happy. Poor daddy!"

"One of Christ's elect," continued Miss Esther, "to be turned aside for a bit of tawdry pewter! For what you can see in a tarnished, old-fashioned thing like that, is more than I can understand."

The Rector looked up for the first time.

"Indeed, Esther," he said in a hurt tone, "it is a fine piece of sixteenth century silver." Katharine cast a wrathful look at the stern figure near the reading-lamp, and came over to her father's side. The rebellious note had gone from her voice altogether as she spoke to him.

"Let me look, daddy, may I?" she asked. Cyril Austen pulled her on to his knee, and they bent together over the old spoon. Miss Esther knitted silently.

"Let me see," said the Rector presently, turning an unruffled countenance towards his sister, "what were we saying? About some parishioners, wasn't it?"

"Parishioners? How can you talk of parishioners, when the first trivial temptation draws you from the right path and—and makes you late for meals? Isn't it enough to neglect your sacred duty, without upsetting the household as well? Coming in at this time of—what is it now, Cyril?"

For a worried look had suddenly crossed the Rector's face. He pulled out his watch, and consulted it with the nervous haste of a man who is constantly haunted by having forgotten something.

"Let me see,—how very stupid of me," he said, laughing slightly. "I fancy there was something else, now; whatever could it have been, I wonder? It was not the spoon, Esther, that made me late. Kitty, my child, what did I say to you when I came in, just now?"

"You said, 'I have picked up a genuine rat-tail at Walker's;' and then you gave your hat to Jim, and hung up the whip on the hat peg!"

"Bad child!" said the Rector, still looking uneasily about him. "I wonder if Jim would know?"

But here a light was thrown on the matter by the entrance of Dorcas, who brought the ambiguous message from Jim that the pony was ready to start again, if the Rector was "going to do anything about the poor creature down agin the chalk pit."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the Rector. "To be sure, that was it. Esther, brandy and blankets, my dear,—anything you've got! We must bring him home at once, of course. I knew there was something. Esther, will you—? Ah, she always understands."

For, to do her credit, Miss Esther never wasted her time in reproaches when there was really something to be done; and in the bustle that followed, while the pony carriage was being filled with everything that could be of use in case of an accident, Katharine found herself left in the hall, with the intolerable feeling of being neglected, and burning with curiosity as to the cause of it all.

"Daddy, daddy, what is it? Is any one hurt? Mayn't I come too?" she pleaded, as the Rector came out to look for his coat.

"Eh, what? Oh, a poor fellow broken his leg in the chalk pit. Doctor's with him now. What is he like? Kind of tourist, I should fancy; evidently didn't see his way in the dark. There, run off to bed, Kitty; you'll hear all about it in the morning."

"But I want to hear now," said the child, quivering with impatience. "What sort of man is he, daddy? Shall I like him, do you think? Oh, do tell, daddy!"

"My child, I hardly noticed. My hat—ah, thanks! He had a black beard, I fancy,—quite young though, I should say,—and a sallow face—"

"How unhealthy it sounds; and I hate unhealthy people! I don't think I want to go now," said Katharine, in an altered tone.

Nevertheless, when the unwilling pony was being urged again into the storm and the darkness, some one slipped through the little group in the porch, and sprang into the carriage beside the Rector. And the Rector, who was incapable of a decided action himself and never disputed one on the part of others, threw the rug over her knees, and they drove off together to the scene of the accident. It was a wild, black night; and the Rector shivered as he bent his head to the furious gusts of wind, and allowed the pony to struggle on feebly at its own pace. But Katharine sat upright with her head thrown back, and would have liked to laugh aloud as the wind caught her long loose hair and lashed it, wet with rain, across her face.

The chalk pit was situated at the further end of the village; on a fine day, it might have been reached in a ten minutes' drive, but to-night it was nearly half an hour before the pony managed to bring its load to a standstill beside the group of men who had been waiting there since dusk. Katharine recognised all the village familiars who came forward at their approach,—the doctor, who had tended her childish maladies; the schoolmaster, who had taught her to read; the churchwarden, who still loved to tell her stories that she had long ago learnt to know by heart. But she had no eyes for any of these to-night; she looked beyond them all, as she jumped lightly out of the carriage, at the man who lay on the ground with his eyes closed. A lantern hung from the branch above, and swung to and fro in the wind, casting intermittent gleams of light across his face.

He opened his eyes wearily as the Rector came forward, and they rested at once upon Katharine, who stood bending over him with the rather heartless curiosity of a very young girl.

"Kitty, move out of the way, my child," the Rector's voice was saying.

"I don't think he looks unhealthy at all," said Katharine dreamily.

CHAPTER II

The sun rose, the following morning, on a scene of devastation. The storm of the previous night had come at the end of a month's hard frost, and everything was in a state of partial thaw. Glistening pools of water lay in the fields on the top of the still frozen ground, looking like patches of snow in the pale sunshine; and a curious phenomenon was discernible in the brooks and the ditches, where a layer of calm water covered the ice that still bound the flowing stream below. The only trace of last night's gale was a distant moaning in the tree-tops; while above was a deepening blueness of sky and a growing warmth in the sunshine. There was winter still on the ground, and the beginning of spring in the air.

Two women had met under the beech-trees at the edge of the chalk pit. Early as it was they had already collected large bundles of sticks; for the beauty of the morning was nothing to them, and the storm, as far as they were concerned, merely meant the acquisition of firewood. They had matter for conversation enough, however; and it was this that was making them loiter so early in the morning near the scene of yesterday's accident.

"Is it the poor thing what fell down yonder, you be a-talkin' of, Mrs. Jones? 'Cause I see Jim hisself this blessed morning, I did, and you can't tell me nothing I doan't know already, you can't, Mrs. Jones," said Widow Priest with fine scorn.

There was a jealousy of long standing between the two neighbours. Mrs. Jones was the sturdy wife of the sexton, and her family was both large and increasing,—a fact which she attributed entirely to Providence; though, when three of them succumbed to insufficient food and care, she put down their loss to the same convenient cause, and extracted as much consolation as she could out of three visits to the churchyard. Widow Priest, on the other hand, had buried no one in the little churchyard on the hill. For her husband had committed suicide, and they had laid him to an uneasy rest without the sedative of a religious ceremony; and his widow was thus robbed even of the triumph of alluding to his funeral. So her widowhood did not bring her its usual compensations; and she felt bitter towards the wife of the sexton, who had buried her three and kept five others, and would probably replace the lost ones in time.

"I bain't so fond o' gossiping nor what you be, Widow Priest," returned Mrs. Jones in loud, hearty tones. "I got no time for talking wi' strangers here an' strangers there, wi' my man an' five little 'uns to do for. An' then there's always the three graves of a Saturday to tidy up, which you ain't got, poor thing; not but what I'm saying it be your fault, in course, Widow Priest."

Widow Priest gave a contemptuous sniff as she sat down to tie up her fagots, and Mrs. Jones remained standing in front of her, with one arm thrown round her bundle of sticks, and the other placed akimbo, an effective picture of triumphant woman.

"Touching the poor thing what broke his back yonder," she continued cheerfully: "I was putting the baby to bed at the time, I was, and I see the whole thing happen from my top window, I did. He jumped the fence, all careless like, jest as though he didn't know the pit were there for sure. An' straightway he tripped up, he did, an' down he went. God help him, I says! An' I puts the baby down, an' I says to our Liz, 'Here, my child,' I says, 'stand by your precious brother while I goes across to the pit,' I says. An' jest as I says that, up comes the Rector an' the doctor with him, driving friendly like together they was. So I says to our Liz, 'It's Providence,' I says, 'what sent they two blessed creatures here this day,' I says. An' I caught up my shawl, I did, an' went hollerin' after them. 'What is it, Mrs. Jones?' says the Rector, 'is it the baby again?'—'Baby?' I says, 'no, sir; not but what it racks me to hear that child cough, it do. There be a man yonder,' I says, 'jest broke his neck down agin the chalk pit.' Lord! it were a sight to see they two men turn that pony round! An' the rain were that bad, it give me lumbago all down my back, that did. Not but what I soon got back to baby again, poor little angel, with a cough that makes my heart ache, to hear it going jest like the others did afore they died. But ye didn't see him fall in, now; did ye, Widow Priest?"

The widow shouldered her fagots grimly, and stalked off with dignity. When she reached the bend of the road, she turned round and shouted a parting word in a tone of unmitigated contempt.

"It bain't his neck, nor his back, Mrs. Jones. It be both his legs, an' he be at the Rectory now, in the best bedroom, he be; an' there he'll likely stop a month or two, Jim says, he do. But Jim didn't give ye a call perhaps, Mrs. Jones?"

"Bless ye, Widow Priest, I ain't told ye half what I know," cried Mrs. Jones. "You be a poor thing, you be, if ye can't stand to hear a body's tale; an' you that's so lonesome too, an' got no one to do for, like I have. Lord, what a hurry some folk do be in, for sure! Eh, but that be Miss Katharine yonder, blest if it ain't; an' Widow Priest be out o' sight, too! I reckon as Miss Katharine knows more nor Jim, an' I be going—"

But a wail from the cottage opposite awakened the mother's sense of duty, and she hastened across the road and forgot all about the accident in an immediate necessity for castigation.

Katharine came over the brow of the hill that sloped down towards the chalk pit, scaled the wooden fence at the bottom, and skirted the edge of the little chasm until she came to the line of beech-trees. Here she paused for a moment, pecked a hole in the soft ground with her heel, and peered thoughtfully down into the pit. Then she turned abruptly away again, and struck across the fields to the further side of the village, where she sped down a grassy lane that was for the most part under water, and stopped at last before a gap in the hedge that was hardly large enough to be noticeable. She squeezed adroitly through it, however, and came in view of an ugly modern house standing in a neglected looking garden, with an untidy farmyard and some stable buildings at the back. Here she was careful to keep a clump of box-trees between herself and the front of the house, until she could come out with safety into the open and approach the iron fence that separated the paddock from the lawn. This she vaulted easily, dropping lightly on the grass beyond, and managed to arrive at last unnoticed, under a small oriel window at the corner of the house. She picked up a handful of small stones, and swung them with a sure aim at the little glass panes, and called, "Coo-ey," as loudly as she dared.

"Lazy toad!" she muttered impatiently. "On a morning like this, too! And just when I had got a real adventure to tell him, that he knows absolutely nothing about, not anything at all!"

She did not throw up any more stones, but mounted the iron railings instead, and sat there with her feet dangling and her eyes fixed on the oriel window.

"It's the biggest score I've ever had over him," she chuckled to herself. "I think I shall explode soon, if he doesn't wake up. I'm getting so awfully hungry, too; it must be eight o'clock."

She called again presently, without changing her position; and this time there was a sign of life behind the oriel window, and the curtains were drawn aside. Katharine forgot all her previous caution, and gave a loud "whoop" of satisfaction. The lattice flew open, and some one with rumpled hair and flushed cheeks looked out and yawned.

"Don't make such a shindy, Kit; you'll wake the mother," he grumbled. "Why the dickens have you come so beastly early?"

"Because Aunt Esther was asleep, of course," answered Katharine promptly. "Hurry up, Ted, and have your bath; it'll make you feel piles better. And you'll have to get me some food; I could eat my boots."

"Don't do that," said Ted. "Last night's steak will do just as well."

"How is she?" asked Katharine, with a jerk of her head towards the front of the house.

"Awful. She's getting worse. She docks the pudding course at supper now. Don't go, Kitty; I'll be down directly."

He was not long, but she was full of impatient reproaches by the time he joined her at the fence.

"I believe you'd like to give the world a shove to make it go round quicker," he retorted, swinging himself up beside her.

"Well, you surely don't think it moves very fast now, do you?" she said. "At all events, Ivingdon doesn't," she added emphatically.

"Well, what did you come for, old chum?" he asked, smiting her shoulder with rough friendliness. "Not to complain of this slow old hole, I bet?"

"Get me something to eat, and I'll tell you."

"Oh, hang, Kitty! I can't. Cook will swear, or go to the mother, or something. Can't you wait till you get home?"

"No, I can't. And I didn't tell you to go to cook, or to her; did I, stupid? Isn't there a pantry window, and isn't the larder next to the pantry, and aren't the servants having breakfast in the kitchen, out of the way? Eh?"

"Well, I'm bothered! But I can't get up to that window, anyhow."

"There's a loose brick just below, and you know it, you lazy boy! What's the use of being exactly six foot, if you can't climb into a window on the ground floor? I can, and I'm only five foot four. Oh, you needn't bother, if you're afraid! I can keep my news, for that matter."

"I don't believe there is any news. Why, I only saw you yesterday afternoon. And nothing ever happens in Ivingdon. You are only rotting, aren't you, Kit?"

"All right; I don't want to tell you, I'm sure. Good-bye," said Katharine, without moving a step.

He called himself a fool, and told her she was a beastly nuisance, and that of course there wasn't any news, and he didn't want to hear it if there was. And he finally strolled round to the pantry window, as she knew he would, and returned with a medley of provisions in his hands. They laughed together at the odd selection he had made,—at the cold pie he was balancing on a slice of bread, and the jam tart that crowned the jug of milk; and they fought over everything like two young animals, and drank out of the same jug and spilled half its contents, and ended in chasing one another round the paddock for no reason whatever.

"Walk home with me, and I'll tell you the news. Come on, Ted!" she cried.

"Guess I will, and chance it. If she doesn't like my being late for breakfast she'll have to do the other thing. Through with you, Kitty, and don't make the hole any larger! There's always the chance that she might have it mended, in a spasm of extravagance, and that would be so bally awkward for us."

She told her news as they went swinging along side by side over the wet fields, leaping the pools of standing water, and switching the wet twigs in each other's face. But they grew quieter as the interest of the tale deepened; and by the time Katharine had reached the episode of the chalk pit, Ted was walking gloomily along with his hands in his pockets and his eyes bent on the ground.

"You always have all the luck, Kitty," he said mournfully. "Why wasn't I there? Think of the use I should have been in helping him into the carriage; only think of it, Kitty!"

"You wouldn't have been a bit of good," she returned cruelly. "You're much too clumsy. They wouldn't even let Jim or daddy help. I held his head, so there!"

"Well, I suppose I could have held his beastly head, too, couldn't I?" roared Ted.

"It wasn't a beastly head; it was awfully nice,—hair all silky, not baby's curls like yours," said Katharine scornfully. "And wasn't he plucky, too! His leg must have hurt frightfully, but he just didn't say a word or utter a sound. All the way home, whenever the thing jolted him, he just screwed up his mouth and looked at me, and that was all. It was the finest thing I've ever seen."

"But you haven't seen much," said Ted.

"No, I haven't. But I've seen you squirm when you had toothache. And you're not fit to speak to if you have an ordinary headache," laughed Katharine.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

"That is where he lies now," said Katharine, with a dramatic gesture towards the spare-room window. Her cheeks were red with excitement, and she never noticed the look on Ted's face as he shrugged his shoulders and made a great pretence of whistling carelessly.

"What sort of a chap is he? Some tourist bounder, I suppose," he condescended to say.

"He isn't a bounder. He has awfully nice hands,—white, and thin, and soft. He's rather pale, with a lot of black hair and a curly beard."

"What a played-out chap to make such a fuss about!" said Ted, turning away contemptuously. "Sounds more like a monkey than anything else. Good-bye. I wish you joy of him!"

"I suppose I'll see you again some time?" she called after him.

"Oh, yes; I suppose so."

"And it was news, wasn't it, Ted?"

"You seem to think so, anyway."

"Poor Ted!" She laughed, and ran indoors. But he had hardly crossed the first field before she had caught him up again, breathless and penitent.

"I didn't mean it, Ted; I didn't, really, old boy. It wasn't news, and he is a monkey, and I'm a horrid pig. Come up after lunch, won't you, Ted? I promise not to talk about him once, and I want to show you something. You will come, Ted, won't you?"

She flung her arms round him in her impulsive way, and gave him one of her rough, playful hugs. But for the first time in his life, Ted shook her off stiffly, and hastened on.

"What's the matter?" asked Katharine, more perplexed than annoyed.

"Oh, all right; I'll come. Don't be a fool, Kitty!" he jerked over his shoulder; and she turned away, only half satisfied, and went slowly into the house. It was characteristic of her that the smallest lack of response from some one else would change her mood immediately; and when she entered the dining-room a few minutes later, her vivacity was all gone, and the first words she caught of the conversation at the breakfast-table only helped to irritate her still further.

"Oh, bother Mr. Wilton!" she said crossly. "The whole house seems to have gone mad over Mr. Wilton. I am tired of hearing his name."

The Rector seemed unconscious of her remark, and only pulled her hair softly as she slipped into the chair beside him. But Miss Esther stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and cast a meaning glance towards Katharine which her father did not see, though she of course did.

"My dear," said Mr. Austen, in reply to his sister, "I am sure you are quite competent to do it. Nancy always said you were a born nurse; and Nancy knew, bless her! Besides, the poor young man has been sent to us in his affliction, and there is nothing else to be done, is there? My child, it will not interest you; we were only saying that Mr.—Wilton, is it?—would require careful nursing; and your aunt—"

"Really, Katharine, there is no necessity for you to interfere. You know too much as it is, and this question is not one that concerns you at all. Perhaps you will keep to the matter in hand until it is settled, Cyril!"

"My dear, I thought it was settled," said the old man mildly. "The poor young fellow has to be nursed, and you are the best person to do it. So there is nothing else, is there, Esther, that need detain me? I am rather anxious—that is, I would like to finish my paper on the antiquities of the county, and it is already ten minutes past—"

"It is a most extraordinary thing," interrupted Miss Esther irritably, "that you never will give your attention to anything that really matters. You totally misunderstand my meaning, Cyril. How can I, your sister and a single woman, with due propriety—Katharine, you can go and feed the chickens."

Katharine did not move, and the Rector got up from his chair.

"My dear," he remonstrated, "I think you over-estimate the difficulty. It is the duty of the woman to look after the sufferer, is it not? I really think there is nothing more to be said about it. Meanwhile—"

"I don't know why you are in such a hurry, Cyril; it is the day for the library to be cleaned, so you cannot use it yet. The whole business is most inopportune; why should he break his leg in Ivingdon, when he might have done it quite conveniently in the county town, and been taken to the infirmary like any one else?"

The Rector wondered vaguely why his room was cleaned more than once a week; but he sat down again and folded his hands, and said that he was of the same opinion as before and saw no reason why the unfortunate young man should not be nursed by Miss Esther.

"No more do I," said Katharine. "What's the difference between nursing Shepherd Horne through bronchitis and nursing Mr. Wilton with a broken leg, except that Mr. Wilton is presumably not so unwashed? I never can see why the poor people should have the monopoly of impropriety, as well as of the Scriptures. Besides, you can easily reduce him to the level of a villager by reading the Psalms to him every day. That would make you feel quite proper, wouldn't it, auntie? And I dare say he wouldn't mind it much, when he got used to it."

"Your profanity," said her aunt severely, "is becoming perfectly outrageous. If you were sometimes to say a few words of reproof to your own daughter, Cyril, instead of dreaming your life away—but there, I must go and look after poor Mr. Wilton! I wonder whether he likes his eggs boiled or scrambled?" she added doubtfully. For Miss Esther was one of those women who reserve the best side of their nature for the people who have no real claim upon them; and she took little interest in any one who was neither poor nor afflicted. The unpractical temperament of the Rector both astonished and chafed her, and she had nothing but a fretful endurance for her high-spirited niece, in whom a natural longing for action and an inordinate sense of humour were fast producing a spirit of revolt and cynicism. But an invalid, who was thus thrown suddenly into her power, appealed strongly to the Rector's sister; and her diffidence had entirely disappeared by the time she had gone through all the objections that propriety impelled her to raise.

"I feel quite thankful," she said, smiling blandly, "that the poor fellow has fallen into such good hands."

"So do I," remarked Katharine, as the door closed. "It will be all the better for your paper on the local antiquities, won't it, daddy? Daddy dear, just think of all the time we shall have to ourselves, now that she's got Mr. Wilton on her hands! Poor Mr. Wilton! Let's come and clear Dorcas out of the library and look at what you've done, shall we? Come along, daddy, quick!"

The Rector stroked her long hair, with a doubtful look on his face.

"I am afraid, Kitty, I do not look after you as I should," he said. "I am a bad old sinner, eh?"

"That's why I love you so. You are a brick!" exclaimed Katharine.

And she dragged him impetuously out of the room.

CHAPTER III

Meanwhile, Paul Wilton lay wearily in the old-fashioned guest-room over the porch. The pain of his broken limb had kept him awake most of the night; and now that the suffering was less the discomfort remained, and he felt no more inclined to sleep than before. With a kind of mechanical interest he had watched the pale light on his striped blind grow deep and red, and then again pale and bright, as the sun came up over the hills. His restlessness increased as the time wore on; the sensation of being unable to move began to grate on his nerves, and he wished impatiently that something would break the stillness of the house, and awaken the people in it who were sleeping so unreasonably. He raised himself on his elbow as a light step came along the passage outside, and sank back again with a feeling of disappointment when it passed his door, and went downstairs into the garden. In reality it was much earlier than he thought; and it was still some time longer before the usual early morning sounds testified to the existence of a maid. He heard the stairs being swept, and suffered silently as the broom was struck clumsily against his wall in its downward course. Then the front door, was unbolted with a good deal of noise, and a few mats were banged together in the open air, and something was done with the door scraper. A conversation, held across the lawn with Jim, had the effect of an altercation, though it was in reality only an inquiry on the subject of milk, shouted shrilly in broad dialect. Later on, came the welcome crackle of a fire and the clatter of teacups; and a smell of hot bacon began to pervade the air.

"At all events, that means breakfast," muttered Paul. "It is not to be hoped that it will be worth eating, but at least it will bring a human being into the room. I wonder why ordinary people never have any ideas for breakfast beyond hot bacon! It is sure to be in thick chunks, too, and salt, oh, very salt! Don't I know it? It recalls my childhood. There will be eggs, too,—there always were eggs when we had visitors; and bad coffee made by unaccustomed hands, also because there is a visitor. I know that coffee too. On the whole, it is wiser to keep to tea in strange places of this sort, although one knows beforehand that it will be thick, and black, and flavourless. I know the tea, best of all. In quite decent houses, one gets that tea."

Nobody came to him, although there were other voices about the house now; and he turned from his dissertation on food to a study of the pictures on the wall. They were of the class that had also been known to him in his childhood; and he smiled sardonically as he glanced at the two texts hidden in a maze of illumination, and the German print of John the Baptist standing in layers of solid water, and the faded photograph of a baby girl with tangled curls and a saucy mouth. Something in the shape of that mouth suggested the shadowy events of last night to his mind, and brought with them the vague recollection of a girl's face looking curiously down at him, and the pleasurable sensation of being supported by two firm, soft hands. He rather liked dwelling on that part of last night's adventures, until a real twinge of pain in his leg recalled also the less pleasant episodes, and he shuddered as he remembered the horrors of his transit from the chalk pit to the Rectory.

"I hate being in pain; it is so vulgar," he muttered distastefully; and a dread crossed his mind lest his suffering should become more than he could bear with dignity.

A timid knock came outside the door, and the maid entered to draw up the blind. She looked clumsy, and Paul sighed. She sidled along the wall to the door again as soon as she could, and asked shyly when he would have his breakfast.

"As soon as you like; and—er—Mary, would you kindly give me that coat? What's the time? And is it a fine day?" asked Paul hurriedly. He was almost childish in his anxiety to keep her in the room for another moment. But to be called by the cook's name so far confused her that she vanished precipitately; and Paul smiled, a little more cynically than before, and returned to his observations of the pictures. Just then he heard the end of the conversation between the boy and girl, under his window, and was amused at his own share in their quarrel.

"Anyhow, if that young woman is going to be about, it may not be so bad, after all," he reflected.

He was reduced to despondency again, however, by the arrival of the breakfast, which fully realised his expectations. For one who professed to have a wide grasp of life, Paul Wilton was singularly affected by trifles. His spirits were not raised when he found who his nurse was to be; and, competent as Miss Esther soon proved herself, he remained convinced that the child with the joyous laugh who made so much merriment about the house, would have suited him far better. And again, he was amused at his interest in some one whom he had hardly seen, and who would probably turn out to be an undeveloped schoolgirl, some one who would ride roughshod over his susceptibilities, and even fail to understand his feelings about things. It seemed impossible to him that he should be able to endure any one who did not understand his feelings about things. She might be plain, too; women with fascinating voices were often extremely plain. And if she were neither mature nor attractive, there could be no object in giving her another thought; for woman, to Paul Wilton, was merely an interesting necessity,—like his food; something to fill up the gaps that were not occupied by work, or art, or any of the real things of life; and something, therefore, to be taken in as delicate a manner as possible. He liked to talk to beautiful women in picturesque surroundings,—to play on their emotions, and to dally with their wit; but the women had to be beautiful, and their setting had to be appropriate.

"Please do not trouble to wait," he said to Miss Esther in the afternoon, when he found her preparing to sit with him. "I shall be quite happy if you will have the goodness to give me the paper and the cigarette case. Thanks."

When she had gone, having lacked the courage to tell him that tobacco smoke had never yet polluted the sacred mustiness of the best spare room, Paul lay back with a sense of relief, and began to review his situation gloomily.

"How I could have made such an ass of myself, I don't know," he murmured. "Foisting myself on complete strangers for six or seven weeks at least! And such strangers, too! Good Lord, how shocked the dear lady looked when I said I hadn't a relation left who cared a hang whether I was alive or dead. I must tell her, as an antidote, that my father was a parson; I have known that to take effect in the most ungodly circles. Perhaps, if I could swear I should feel better. But I am not a swearing man; besides, she might leave me to that painfully dull maid if I did. And that would be a pity," he added reflectively; "for, at least, she does know how to make a fellow as comfortable as a fractured leg will let him be."

A sudden shoot of pain made him turn his head wearily on one side. He had told the doctor, only that morning, that it was nothing, and that he did not suffer much; and then had been unreasonably disappointed at the professional verdict that it was a simple fracture, and presented no complications. He would have liked to be an interesting case, at least.

"I wonder if I am likely to get a glimpse of that jolly little girl," he went on, looking idly at the faded photograph opposite. "It is probably the one who steadied my head in the dark, last night; the one who laughs, too. A Philistine place like this could never produce two of them. However, I shall never find out as long as I am nursed by that dragon. And after all, why trouble about it? It shows what a baleful effect idleness can have upon a man, when an unsophisticated parson's daughter with a jolly laugh can—hullo!"

He heard voices on the landing, and listened eagerly. There was the sound of a scuffle and a stifled laugh, and some one shook the door by falling clumsily against it.

"Come in, do!" shouted Paul desperately, and the door opened with a jerk.

"I say, did we disturb you, or anything? I'm beastly sorry; but Kitty would rot so, and I couldn't help it, really. And, I say, I'm awfully sorry you're so hit up."

It was Ted, apologetic and self-conscious. Paul smiled encouragingly; it was at least some one to talk to, even if it was a boy under twenty, for whose kind he had as a rule little sympathy. He could see there was some one else too, on the landing outside; so he smiled a little more. It pleased him to have his curiosity satisfied, though perhaps he would not have liked it to be called curiosity.

"You see, Kitty will play so poorly," pursued Ted, plunging his hands in his pockets to give himself more confidence. "I shouldn't have dreamt of bothering you like this, if it hadn't been for Kitty."

"I am quite content to believe that it was the fault of Miss Kitty, whose acquaintance I have not the honour of possessing," said Paul gravely. "But won't you come in a little further, and explain matters?"

Ted came in a good deal further, just then, assisted by an unexpected push between his shoulders.

"It's so poor of Kitty; and it isn't my fault, I swear it isn't!" said Ted, in an injured tone. "You see, she wants me to say—Oh, hang, Kit, do let a fellow explain! Well, she says that—that—well, she wants to come in too, don't you see? She doesn't see why she should have to go and talk to horrid old men in the village, when they won't let her come in and talk to you; at least, that's what she says. And she says it's all rotten humbug— Well, you know you did! But Miss Esther will about kill me when she finds it out. Kitty never thinks of that, she's so poor."

Paul smiled again, partly at himself for being young enough to appreciate the childishness of the situation.

"Where is Miss Esther?" he asked, like a man, wisely.

"Oh, she's out right enough; but still—"

"Yes," said Paul reflectively, "I recognise that there are still difficulties in the way. But don't you think, as I am decidedly as much afflicted as the other horrid old men you mentioned, and as Miss Esther is out, that—we might all agree to vote it rotten humbug? Just for a few minutes, you know!"

And Katharine, who had been listening anxiously to every word, slipped into the room at this point of the negotiations, and closed the door; nodded cheerfully to Paul as though she had known him all her life, and dropped sideways on the chair at the end of his bed.

"I knew you wouldn't mind," she said. "Ted declared you would; but Ted's so awfully dense sometimes, isn't he?"

Paul was willing to admit that, on this occasion, Ted had been remarkably dense; but he only murmured some commonplace about the correctness of her judgment, and the honour he felt at her discrimination.

"Oh, I knew!" said Katharine confidently. "I am never wrong about people. Ted is. He makes fearful hashes about people; I always have to tell him who is to be trusted, and who isn't."

"I should like to know," observed Paul, "how you manage to know so much about people whom you have never seen before,—myself, for instance!"

"But I have seen you before! Oh, I forgot; of course, you didn't know. I was with daddy last night when he came to fetch you. Don't you remember? I suppose you were too bad to notice much."

"That must have been it," assented Paul. "I just remember some one supporting my head, or it may have been my shoulders—"

"It was your head. That was me!" cried Katharine, with animation. "Wasn't Ted jealous when I told him,—that's all!"

"I wasn't," said Ted. "But it was just like Kitty. Girls always do have all the luck."

"I am glad," said Paul drily, "that at least one of you was fortunate enough to view my discomfiture."

Ted laughed, but Katharine became suddenly thoughtful.

"I was very sorry for you, I was really," she said.

"Oh, no, excuse me,—merely interested," said Paul.

Katharine reflected again.

"Perhaps I was; how caddish of me!" she said, and looked at him doubtfully. Paul raised his eyebrows; to be taken seriously by a woman, at such an early stage of her acquaintance, was a new experience to him.

"Oh, please," he exclaimed, laughing, "don't be truthful whatever you are! It's much more charming to think that you were sorry for me."

Katharine still seemed puzzled. She turned to Ted instinctively, and he came to her rescue.

"She thought you were awfully plucky and all that; she told me so. I was rather sick about it, of course; but, after all, it wasn't really worth minding because you were hit up so completely, you see."

"You are a singularly brutal pair of young people," observed Paul, glancing from one to the other. "I should like you to have the feel of my leg for half an hour. I fancy you would find yourselves 'hit up,' as you are pleased to call it."

"Oh, but we're not a bit brutal," objected Katharine. "Ted never can help saying what he thinks at the moment,—that's how it is. It's because he shows all his feelings, don't you see?"

"You mustn't think Kitty is unfeeling because she doesn't say things," continued Ted. "She hates spoofing people, and she never says things she doesn't mean. She doesn't always say them when she does mean them; it's rather rough on a fellow sometimes, I think," he added feelingly.

The garden gate swung to, and they sprang to their feet simultaneously.

"Shall we scoot?" asked Ted, who seemed the more apprehensive of the two.

"I suppose so. Bother!" said Katharine regretfully. Ted was already gone, but she still lingered. The flying visit to Paul, instead of satisfying her curiosity about him, had only roused it still more; and she sauntered half absently towards him, without the least pretence of being in a hurry to go.

"Good-bye," she said, and put her hand into his. It was the first time she had shown any signs of shyness, and Paul began to like her better.

"Not good-bye," he said lightly. "You will come in again, won't you? We shall have a good lot to tell each other."

"Shall we?"

"Well, don't you think so?" He dropped her hand and laughed. It seemed absurd that this child, who behaved generally like a charming tomboy, should persist in taking him seriously when he merely wanted to frivol.

"I'll come if it won't bore you," said Katharine shortly. She was wondering what there was to laugh at.

"Can you write a tolerable hand?" he asked.

"I write all daddy's things for him."

"Then we'll see if something can't be arranged," he began. He congratulated himself on his tact in helping to gratify her evident wish to see him again; but she baffled him once more by suddenly brightening up, and seizing upon his suggestion before he had half formed it.

"Could I be your secretary, do you mean? Why, of course I could. What fun! Aunt Esther? Oh, that's nothing. I will manage Aunt Esther. Good-bye."

She managed Aunt Esther very effectually at supper time, by calmly announcing her intention of becoming Mr. Wilton's secretary. And the Rector's sister, who was a curious compound of conventional dogma and worldly ignorance, and knew into the bargain that it was of no use to withstand her headstrong niece, gave in to her newest whim with a bad grace.

"Do as you like; I am no longer the head of the house, I suppose," she observed fretfully.

"Oh, yes, you are, Aunt Esther!" retorted Katharine with provoking cheerfulness. "I only want to be Mr. Wilton's secretary."

Paul was not so elated as she had expected to find him, when she walked into his room in Miss Esther's wake on the following day, and told him that she had gained her point and was ready to become his secretary. Being such a responsive creature herself, she always expected every one else to share her emotions.

"Aren't you glad?" she asked him anxiously.

Not being able to explain that what he wanted was not so much a secretary as a pretty girl to amuse him, he said with his usual smile that he was delighted, and proceeded to dictate various uninteresting letters of a business-like character.

"So you live in the Temple," she observed, as she folded up a letter to his housekeeper. "Isn't it a gloriously romantic place to live in?"

"It is convenient," said Paul briefly. And that was all the conversation they had that day.

He wanted no letters written the next day, and she read the paper to him instead. But Miss Esther stayed in the room all the time, with her knitting, and there was no conversation that day either. On the third day, however, her aunt was wanted in the parish; and she deputed the Rector to take her place in the sick room. She might have known that he would forget all about it, directly she was gone; but Miss Esther always acted on the assumption that her brother possessed all the excellent qualities she wished him to have, and it never occurred to her that he would spend the afternoon in finishing his paper on the antiquities of the county.

"Aunt Esther has gone to see a poor woman who has lost her baby. I never can imagine why a woman who has lost her baby should be visited just because she is poor. Can you?" said Katharine, as she settled herself on the spare-room window-seat with her writing materials.

"No," said Paul, concealing his satisfaction that Miss Esther was of a different opinion. "You needn't bother about writing any letters to-day, thanks," he continued carelessly; "and I don't think I want to hear the paper, either."

"Don't you? oh!" said Katharine, looking disappointed. "Then there's nothing I can do for you?"

"Oh, yes. You can talk, if you will," said Paul, smiling. "Come and sit on the chair at the end of the bed, where you sat the first day you came in. I can see you, then."

"It is ever so much nicer to see the person you are talking to, isn't it?" observed Katharine, as she obeyed his suggestion.

"Much nicer," assented Paul, though it had never occurred to him to suggest that Miss Esther should occupy that particular chair. "Now then, talk, please!"

Katharine made a sign of dismay.

"I can't," she said. "You begin."

"Who is your favourite poet?" asked Paul solemnly. She disconcerted him by taking his question seriously, and he had to listen to her enthusiastic eulogies of several favourite poets, before he had an opportunity of explaining himself.

She detected him in the act of suppressing a yawn, and she stopped suddenly, in the middle of a sentence.

"I believe I am boring you dreadfully. Shall I go?" she asked. The colour had come into her cheeks, and her voice had a note of distress in it.

"I want you to tell me something, first," was his unexpected reply. "Do you talk about poetry to young Morton?"

"Ted? Why, no, of course not. What an awful reflection! Ted isn't a bit poetic, not a little bit; and he would scoff like anything. I have never talked about the things I really like to anybody before; not even to daddy, much."

This was a little dangerous, and the tomboy daughter of the parson was not the kind of personality that was likely to make the danger fascinating. And Paul's first impulse was to wince at the unstudied frankness of her remark; but four days of seclusion had been exceedingly chastening, and the flattery that underlay her words was not unpleasing to him.

"Then what made you suppose I cared about poetry, eh?" he asked deliberately.

"Why," said Katharine, staring at him, "you began it, don't you remember? I thought you wanted me to tell you what I thought."

"Yes, yes; I am aware of that. But don't you think we have talked enough about poetry for one day?" said Paul, half closing his eyes. He was already regretting his stupidity in expecting her to understand him.

"How awfully funny you are! First you say—"

"Yes," said Paul, as patiently as he could, "I know. Don't let us say any more about it. Supposing you were to talk to me now as you would talk to young Morton, for instance!"

Katharine shook her head doubtfully.

"I don't think I could. You're not like Ted; you don't like the same sort of things. You're not like me, either."

Paul smiled grimly.

"We're both the same in reality, Miss Kitty. Only, you are focussing it from one end, and I from another. I mean, you are too abominably young and I am too abominably old, for conversation. We shall have to keep to the favourite poets, after all."

Katharine had come round to the side of the bed, and was regarding him critically, with a very serious look on her face.

"What is the matter?" she asked abruptly. "I hate people to say they are old—when they are nice people. It makes me feel horrid; I don't like it. I never let daddy talk about growing old; it gives me a sort of cold feel, don't you know? I wish you wouldn't. Besides, I am not young, either; I am nearly nineteen. I know I look much younger, because I won't put my hair up; but my skirts are nearly to the ground. What makes you say I am too young to be talked to?"

"I said you were too young for conversation. It is not quite the same thing, is it?"

"Isn't it?" said Katharine, and she looked away out of the window for a full minute. What she saw there she could not have told, but it was something that had never been there before. When she brought her eyes round again to his face, the serious look had gone out of them, and they were twinkling with fun. "I know!" she laughed. "Let's talk without any conversation."

"She's the same woman, after all," was Paul's reflection.

They did not mention the favourite poets again; but they had no difficulty for the rest of the afternoon in finding something to talk about. It was getting late when the garden gate gave its usual warning, and Katharine got up with a sigh.

"When shall I see you again?" he asked. They had not gone through the formality of shaking hands, this time.

"When Aunt Esther has not gone to see a poor woman who has lost her baby," said Katharine, laughing.

"Nonsense! we will keep the letters and the newspaper for that kind of visit. Won't some one else die, don't you think, so that we can have another talk?"

"I'll see," said Katharine, which could not strictly be called an answer to his question. But it fully satisfied Paul.

CHAPTER IV

The weeks crept on; and Paul Wilton, from being merely an object of interest and pity, gradually became the greatest mystery in the neighbourhood. Such a reputation was entirely unsought on his part, although, had he been aware of it, the probability is that it would not have been wholly unpleasing to him. For it had been his pose through life to mystify people,—not by deliberately assuming to be what he was not, but by strenuously avoiding any appearance of what he was; and his indifference, which was what people first noticed in him, was entirely feigned for the purpose of concealing that his real attitude towards life was a critical one. It was not unreasonable that a man of this calibre, suddenly placed in a quiet country parish, should end in making some sort of a sensation there. Miss Esther from the beginning had suffered much, and silently; but a man who had a father in Crockford and a mother in Debrett, was to be forgiven a good deal, and she felt compelled to overlook even the ash of his cigarettes, and his French novels, when she found them both on the chaste counterpane of the best spare-room bed. But there were others in Ivingdon who, not having much of a pedigree themselves, were inclined to undervalue the importance of one; and some of these, the doctor, for instance, and Peter Bunce the churchwarden, came to the Rector for enlightenment.

"Eh, but he doan't give hisself away much, do he, now?" said the churchwarden, jerking his thumb in the direction of the lame man, who had just swung himself past the window on his crutches. "He be proper close, I reckon, eh?"

"He is a very intelligent young man," said the Rector vaguely. "He has quite an appreciation of Oriental china."

It was Sunday afternoon, and the Rector was dispensing whiskey and cigars to his guests, with a prodigality that might have been attributed to Miss Esther's absence at the Sunday school. There was an ease, too, about their manners and their conversation, which was to be traced to the same cause.

"I suppose he's beastly clever, and all that, isn't he?" asked Ted morosely. He was sitting on the window ledge, a convenient position which allowed him to shout occasional answers to the questions that came from Katharine on the other side of the lawn. Just then, however, she was joined by Paul; and Ted knew instinctively that he would have no more questions to answer after that.

"It is difficult to say what he is," observed the doctor. "You can't get him to talk; at least, not much. Generally, when I've done all the professional business, he relapses into total silence, and I just have to go; but sometimes he is inclined to be chatty, and then he makes a delightful companion. But the odd thing is, that I know no more about the man himself at the end of a conversation than I did at the beginning. A barrister, did you say he was? That accounts for the judicial manner, then; but the question is, what is there behind it all?"

No one seemed to have an answer ready to the doctor's question; but Peter Bunce took a long pull at the whiskey, and brushed the cigar ash from his capacious waistcoat, and attacked the subject with fresh vigour.

"There ain't no finding out anything about no one, without you take a bit o' trouble," he remarked wisely. "Mayhap Mr. Austen, yonder, might know a something more than us folk. Hasn't he got never a father, now? There's a won'erful lot to be gathered from knowing of a man's father, there is. Like enough he's one o' they London folk, as daren't speak aloud for fear of its getting into the newspapers. London folk is mighty well watched, so I've heard; there's never a moment's peace or safety in London, some say. Mayhap Mr. Wilton's father is a London gen'leman, now!"

"His father?" said the Rector, with sudden enthusiasm. "His father was something short of a genius, sir! He is the best authority we have on the numismatics of his neighbourhood. Have you never heard of Wilton's 'Copper Tokens'?"

"Guess we have, sir, pretty often," laughed Ted.

The Rector looked pathetic, and handed him another cigar, with an apprehension that arose from the distant clang of the garden gate.

"They all laugh at me," he said in a cheery tone that evoked no one's pity. "I'm an old fool; oh, yes, we know all about that. But if you had read Wilton's 'Copper Tokens,' you wouldn't want to know who this man's father was. Let me see,—what did I do with my Crockford?"

"I expect you thought it was a hymn-book and carted it up to church this morning," said Ted, in a tone of forced merriment. He still had one eye on the lawn, and what he saw there did not raise his spirits.

"Died at the age of fifty-eight, when his son was a lad of eighteen, he tells me," continued the Rector. "That was the same date that the fifth edition of the 'Copper Tokens' was issued, some ten or fifteen years ago now. Bless me, how time flies when we're not growing any younger!"

For the space of a moment or two, everybody present was occupied with a mental calculation. The churchwarden was the first to give up the attempt, and he returned doggedly to the original topic.

"Age ain't got nothing to do with it," he began, heaving a sigh of relief as he substituted his pipe for the unusual cigar. "'Cause why? Some folk's old when they're young, and other folk's young when they're old; that's where it lays, you see."

Nobody did see; but Ted threw in a vicious comment.

"The Lord only knows how old he is, but he's as played out as they make them," he said.

The churchwarden smiled, without understanding, and Cyril Austen was too deep in his Crockford to hear what was passing; but the doctor had been young himself, not so long ago, and he understood.

"Does he talk about leaving?" he asked in a casual manner, directing his remark to the boy on the window ledge. "There's nothing to keep him here now, as far as I can see."

"Don't know anything about him," said Ted, with a studied indifference. "I should have thought, from the way Kitty speaks of him, that London couldn't do without him for another moment. What they all see in him, I don't know. I suppose it's because I'm such a rotten ass, but he seems just like anybody else to me as far as brains are concerned. And he can't talk for nuts. But Miss Esther says his family is all square; and that's enough for the women, I suppose."

The doctor nodded sympathetically, and Ted laughed as if he were a little ashamed of taking himself so seriously.

"He's going to make himself scarce on Wednesday," he continued, rather more cordially. "He's got a pal of his coming down on business to-morrow, and they're going off together. Good thing, too, eh? Don't know anything about the pal—he's not any great shakes, I expect; but Wilton swears he knows a lot about coins, and of course that will fetch the Rector. Fact is, this place is getting too clever for me. There's Kitty, who rots about poetry and things till it makes you sick. She never used to; and it's no good her trying to spoof you that she isn't altered, because she is,—and all for the sake of a chap like Wilton, who hardly ever opens his mouth! It's so poor, isn't it?"

But here the arrival of Miss Esther postponed any further discussion of the Rectory guest. The doctor suddenly remembered that he had a patient to visit, and took an abrupt departure; and the churchwarden refused a curt invitation to tea, and went hastily after him. Ted lingered a moment or two, without being noticed at all; and Miss Esther, having successfully routed her brother's guests, went into the garden to disturb the conversation on the other side of the lawn.

Some two days later, Paul Wilton and his friend from London were pacing up and down the narrow strip of gravel path that skirted the house on the south side. In the absence of Katharine, who had induced him to prolong the period of helplessness, as he would have wished to prolong any other pleasurable sensation, Paul had no reason to play the invalid; and, except for an occasional limp, there was nothing in his walk to indicate lameness. There was the usual inexplicable smile on his face, however, as he listened to the bantering conversation of the man at his side, and occasionally interrupted it with one of his dry, terse remarks. His companion was a little elderly man, with small features and a fresh complexion, whose geniality was the result of temperament rather than of principle, and whose conversation was toned with a personal refrain that made it naïvely amusing.

"That's a pretty child, by the way," he was saying, with the air of a connoisseur. Katharine had just left them, and they could hear her laughing with her father indoors. Paul murmured an assent, and went on smoking. His companion glanced at him sideways, and smiled gently.

"Very pretty," he repeated, "but ridiculously young. And who is the charming boy who is so gone on her? She doesn't see it a bit, and he hasn't the pluck to tell her. I'm quite sorry for that boy; I've been in his shoes many a time, and I know what it feels like. He's got a lot to teach her, that's certain, eh? Doesn't interest you, I suppose! If it had been me, now, chained here with a broken leg and nothing to do, with an idyllic love story going on under my eyes—ah, well! you are not made that way, and I am too old, I suppose. Besides, in spite of her charm, she isn't exactly my style."

"No," said Paul; "she is not your style."

"All the same, she's remarkably pretty, and I'm not too old to admire a pretty woman," chuckled his companion. "'Pon my word, I 'm quite inclined to envy that boy. Just imagine a veritable woman, still thinking herself a child, with a delightful boy for her only companion, and no one to stand between them! I'd have given worlds for such a chance when I was his age."

"But, you see, you are not his age; so it is no use trying to cut him out. Besides, you ought to know better, Heaton, at your time of life," said Paul, in a jesting manner that was a little strained. Heaton took his remark rather as a compliment than otherwise.

"You won't alter me, my boy; you'll find me the same to the end of the chapter,—so make up your mind to that. I'm not ashamed of it either, not I! Seriously, though, I'm quite interested in our little love story yonder. I should like to help that boy. Silly ass! why doesn't he make a plunge for it? He isn't likely to have a rival."

"Perhaps that is why he doesn't," observed Paul. "But I don't see why we should trouble ourselves about it."

"That's where you're so cynical," complained Heaton. "These little affairs always interest me intensely; they bring back my youth to me, and remind me of my lost happiness. Oh, life! what you once held for me! And now it is all gone, buried with my two sweet wives, and I am left alone with no one to care what becomes of me."

His eyes were moist as he finished speaking, and Paul walked along at his side without offering any consolation. He would have found it difficult to explain why he had chosen Laurence Heaton for a friend. It would be more correct to say, perhaps, that Heaton had chosen him, and that he had lacked the energy or the power to shake him off. It was generally true that his sentimental egotism bored Paul excessively, and yet he found something to like in a nature that was so unlike his own; and he was so secretive himself that the artless confidences of Heaton, if a little wearisome, at least relieved him of the necessity of adding to the conversation. Besides this, he was a man who never willingly sought the friendship of others, and the obvious preference that the good-natured idler, who was so many years his elder, had shown for him when they first met at a public dinner, had secretly flattered him not a little, and their acquaintance had grown after that as a matter of course.

"All the same," resumed Heaton in his ordinary manner, "an outsider never can do much in these cases. Perhaps it would be better to leave them alone; and yet, if the boy were to come to me for the benefit of my larger experience—"

"Don't you think," interrupted Paul, "that we have talked about a couple of children as much as we need? It's all very well for an old reprobate like yourself to spend your time in reviving your lost youth, but I haven't so much leisure as you have, and I want to hear about those shares you mentioned in your letter last week."

Heaton laughed good-humouredly.

"You don't realise, my dear fellow, how anything like that always interests me. But you wait until your time comes; at present you are too cynical to understand what I mean."

"Or too romantic," suggested Paul.

"Oh, no!" said Heaton. "Romance is only an equivalent for inexperience; I think you're a cold-hearted beggar who lets the best things in life go by, but I shouldn't call you inexperienced. You've got a finished way with women that always appeals to them; women love a little humbug, if it's well done. I'm too obvious for them, too simple-minded, and that always frightens them off."

"Does it?" smiled Paul.

"Now, you ought to marry," continued Heaton briskly. "I believe in marriage, hanged if I don't! and it's been the making of me. Everything that is good in me I owe to my married life."

"Did it really take two marriages?" murmured Paul. His companion smiled at the joke against himself, and they stood for a moment in silence, looking over the lawn that had just acquired its fresh bloom of green. Katharine's voice came out to them again through the open window, this time raised in indignant dispute with her aunt.

"She is a curious mixture of hardness and sentiment," said Paul involuntarily, "and her surroundings have made her a prig; but she interests me rather."

"Ah," said Heaton, "I quite agree with you. There is a touch of the prig about her. But can you wonder? She is the only bit of life and prettiness about the place, and she never meets her equal. They think a good lot of her, too. And the parson's daughter generally thinks a good lot of herself."

"She does it rather charmingly," said Paul, in a dispassionate tone, "and she is fairly well read, and knows how to express herself. For a woman, she has quite a sense of criticism."

"That's bad," said Heaton decidedly, "very bad. A woman should have no sense of criticism. That is what makes her a prig. In fact, as I have often said to you before, a prig is made in three ways. First of all, she is made by her own people, if she happens to be clever; and secondly, by the world, if she happens to be successful; and thirdly, by her lover, if she isn't in love with him. But of course if she is in love with him he may be the cause of her unmaking."