a few
tolerant words of advice or comment, and as commonplace work was rather
the rule than the exception, the Reverend Paul's life was not idle,
Anice's manner toward her father's curate was so gentle and earnest, so
frank and full of trust in him, that it was not to be wondered at that
each day only fixed her more firmly in his heart Nothing of his
conscientious labor was lost upon her; nothing of his self-sacrifice and
trial was passed by indifferently in her thoughts of him; his pain and
his effort went to her very heart. Her belief in him was so strong that
she never hesitated to carry any little bewilderment to him or to speak
to him openly upon any subject. Small marvel, that he found it delicious
pain to go to the house day after day, feeling himself so near to her,
yet knowing himself so far from any hope of reaching the sealed chamber
of her heart.

Notwithstanding her knowledge of her inability to alter his position,
Anice still managed to exert some slight influence over her friend's
fate.

"Do you not think, papa, that Mr. Grace has a great deal to do?" she
suggested once, when he was specially overburdened.

"A great deal to do?" he said. "Well, he has enough to do, of course,
my dear, but then it is work of a kind that suits him. I never leave
anything very important to Grace. You do not mean, my dear, that you
fancy he has too much to do?"

"Rather too much of a dull kind," answered Anice. "Dull work is tiring,
and he has a great deal of it on his hands. All that school work, you
know, papa--if you could share it with him, I should think it would make
it easier for him."

"My dear Anice," the rector protested; "if Grace had my responsibilities
to carry on his shoulders,--but I do not leave my responsibilities to
him. In my opinion he is hardly fitted to bear them--they are not in his
line;" but seeing a dubious look on the delicate face opposite him--"but
if you think the young fellow has really too much to do, I will try to
take some of these minor matters upon myself. I am equal to a good deal
of hard work,"--evidently feeling himself somewhat aggrieved.

But Anice made no further comment; having dropped a seed of suggestion,
she left it to fructify, experience teaching her that this was her best
plan. It was one of the good rector's weaknesses, to dislike to find
his course disapproved even by a wholly uninfluential critic, and his
daughter was by no means an uninfluential critic. He was never