ychurch;'
the houses were quickly filled, one street after another was built,
till the population of the town was more than doubled. A deficiency in
church accommodation was soon felt, for the old church had before been
but just sufficient for the inhabitants. Various proposals were
made--to fill up the arches with galleries, and to choke the centre
aisle with narrow pews; but all were equally distasteful to Mr.
Woodbourne, who, placing some benches in the aisle for the temporary
accommodation of his new parishioners, made every effort to raise funds
to build and endow an additional church. He succeeded, as we have
heard; and it was the tall white spire of the now Church of St.
Austin's, which greeted Anne Merton's delighted eyes, as on the 27th of
August, she, with her father and mother, came to the top of a long
hill, about five miles from Abbeychurch. What that sight was to her,
only those who have shared in the joys of church-building can know.
She had many a time built the church in her fancy; she knew from
drawing and description nearly every window, every buttress, every
cornice; she had heard by letter of every step in the progress of the
building; but now, that narrow white point, in the greyish green of the
distance, shewed her, for the first time, what really was the work of
her father--yes, of her father, for without him that spire would never
have been there; with the best intentions, Mr. Woodbourne could not
have accomplished more than a solid well-proportioned building, with
capabilities of embellishment. It was not till they had nearly reached
the town, that her thoughts turned to the pleasure of seeing her
cousins, or even of meeting her brother, whom she expected to find at
the Vicarage, on his return from Scotland, where he had been spending
the last six weeks.

In this anticipation, however, she was disappointed; he was not among
the group who stood in the hall, eager to greet the travellers, and no
tidings had been heard of him. After talking over the chances of his
arriving in the course of the evening, Sir Edward went with Mr.
Woodbourne to see the new church, and the ladies were conducted to
their apartments; Mrs. Woodbourne making apologies to Anne for lodging
her with Elizabeth, and Anne laughingly declaring that she enjoyed
Elizabeth's company much more than solitary grandeur. The two cousins
were followed by the whole tribe of children, flaxen-haired and
blue-eyed little sprites, the yo