ors in such a place. Rain? yes, it
rained some hours ago, but now it is splendid weather. I feel myself
quite qualified for guide, I assure you. I can show you all the
beauties of the neighbourhood, and throw in a bog and a nest of
vipers to boot."

Mr Donne languidly assented to this proposal of going out; and then
he became restless until Mr Hickson had eaten a hasty lunch, for he
hoped to meet Ruth on the way from church, to be near her, and watch
her, though he might not be able to speak to her. To have the slow
hours roll away--to know he must leave the next day--and yet, so
close to her, not to be seeing her--was more than he could bear. In
an impetuous kind of way, he disregarded all Mr Hickson's offers of
guidance to lovely views, and turned a deaf ear to Mr Bradshaw's
expressed wish of showing him the land belonging to the house ("very
little for fourteen thousand pounds"), and set off wilfully on the
road leading to the church, from which, he averred, he had seen a
view which nothing else about the place could equal.

They met the country people dropping homewards. No Ruth was there.
She and her pupils had returned by the field-way, as Mr Bradshaw
informed his guests at dinner-time. Mr Donne was very captious
all through dinner. He thought it would never be over, and cursed
Hickson's interminable stories, which were told on purpose to
amuse him. His heart gave a fierce bound when he saw her in the
drawing-room with the little girls.

She was reading to them--with how sick and trembling a heart, no
words can tell. But she could master and keep down outward signs of
her emotion. An hour more to-night (part of which was to be spent in
family prayer, and all in the safety of company), another hour in the
morning (when all would be engaged in the bustle of departure)--if,
during this short space of time, she could not avoid speaking to him,
she could at least keep him at such a distance as to make him feel
that henceforward her world and his belonged to separate systems,
wide as the heavens apart.

By degrees she felt that he was drawing near to where she stood.
He was by the table examining the books that lay upon it. Mary and
Elizabeth drew off a little space, awe-stricken by the future member
for Eccleston. As he bent his head over a book, he said, "I implore
you; five minutes alone."

The little girls could not hear; but Ruth, hemmed in so that no
escape was possible, did hear.

She took sudden courage