bury,
and hear Harold Gwynne preach. Olive told her mother all that had passed
in the churchyard, and they agreed that he must be a very peculiar,
though a very clever man. As for Christal, she had gone off with her
friend, Mrs. Fludyer, and did not interfere in the conversation at all.

When Sunday morning came, Mrs. Rothesay's feeble strength was found
unequal to a walk of two miles. Christal, apparently not sorry for the
excuse, volunteered to remain with her, and Olive went to church alone.
She was loth to leave her mother; but then she did so long to hear Mr.
Gwynne preach! She thought, all the way, what kind of minister he would
make. Not at all like any other, she was quite sure.

She entered the grey, still, village church, and knelt down to pray in a
retired corner-pew. There was a great quietness over her--a repose like
that of the morning before sunrise. She felt a meek happiness, a
hopeful looking forth into life; and yet a touch would have awakened the
fountain of tears.

She saw Mrs. Gwynne walk up the aisle alone, with her firm, stately
step, and then the service began. Olive glanced one instant at the
officiating minister;--it was the same stern face that she had seen
by Sara's grave; nay, perhaps even more stern. Nor did she like his
reading, for there was in it the same iron coldness. He repeated
the touching liturgy of the English Church with the tone of a judge
delivering sentence--an orator pronouncing his well-written, formal
harangue. Olive had to shut her ears before she herself could heartily
pray. This pained her; there was something so noble in Mr. Gwynne's
face, so musical in his voice, that any shortcoming gave her a sense of
disappointment. She felt troubled to think that he was the clergyman of
the parish, and she must necessarily hear him every Sunday.

Harold Gwynne mounted his pulpit, and Olive listened intently. From
what she had heard of him as a highly intellectual man, from the
faint indications of character which she had herself noticed in their
conversation, Miss Rothesay expected that he would have dived deeply
into theological disquisition. She had too much penetration to look to
him for the Christianity of a St. John--it was evident that such was not
his nature; but she thought he would surely employ his powerful mind
in wrestling with those knotty points of theology which might furnish
arguments for a modern St. Paul.

But Harold Gwynne did neither. His sermon was a plain