ou spoil me. I read her all your description of
the Bean-feast. Oh, if I had only been there! But it is wicked of me to
say that."

But later on there was a touch of curiosity, almost a shadow of doubt.

"You say so little about Miss Elizabeth Templeton," she wrote, "and yet
you are at the Wood House every day. It is always Miss Templeton. Is it
heresy, dear? but I fancy I should like Miss Elizabeth best. Tell me
more about her next time you write. I want to see her with your eyes."
But Anna pleaded in vain--on the subject of Elizabeth's merits he kept
silence.

But it was quite true that he was at the Wood House nearly every day,
and that the sisters always welcomed him most kindly. Sometimes he
dined there, either alone or with the Kestons; or he would stroll
across at tea-time, or oftener in the evening, when they were sitting
on the terrace. David Carlyon was often with them; his father had left
him by this time. The young men used to look askance at each other in
the dim light, and Malcolm would shake hands with the curate rather
stiffly.

"Carlyon was there again," he would say to Amias, when he found his
friend smoking in the porch. "I don't dislike the fellow, but one may
have too much even of a good thing." Then Amias looked at him rather
queerly but made no answer.

Caleb Martin and Kit were established comfortably at the cottage under
Mrs. Sullivan's motherly wing, and Kit's white pinched little face
filled out in the sweet country air.

"She is a different creature," Caleb assured Malcolm. "I wish Ma'am
could see her. She is just as happy as the day is long. We are in the
woods from morning to night, picking up fir-cones and building with
them, and making believe that we are gypsies. She's ready to drop with
fatigue before she lets me take her home, and then our good lady scolds
us a bit."

"And poor Mrs. Martin is alone in Todmorden's Lane?" remarked Malcolm.

"Lord love you, sir," returned Caleb, "you don't need to be pitying
Ma'am; she's glad to be rid of the pair of us. She is whitewashing and
papering the rooms. She is a handy woman, is Ma'am, and she says we
shall not know the place when we go back. I never knew such a woman for
scrubbing and cleaning--it seems to make her happy somehow."

Malcolm made frequent visits to Rotherwood to see Caleb and Kit, and he
generally paid them on the days when Elizabeth was at the schools, so
that he could walk back with her through the woodlands.

The