home when the wedding took place; and that Lysken,
whom Lucrece graciously requested to be one of her bridesmaids,
declined, with a quiet keenness of manner which any one but Lucrece
would have felt.

"If it should like thee to have me for thy bridesmaid, Lucrece," she
said, looking her calmly in the face, "it should not like me." [In
modern phraseology,--I should not like it.]

The bride accepted the rebuke with unruffled suavity.

Of course there were the ceremonies then usual at weddings, and a shower
of old slippers greeted bride and bridegroom as they rode away.

"Aunt Rachel, you hit her on the head!" cried Blanche, looking
astonished.

"I took metely good aim," assented Rachel, with grim satisfaction. "A
good riddance of--Blanche, child, if thou wouldst have those flowers to
live, thou wert best put them in water."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A GLIMPSE OF THE HOT GOSPELLER.

"In service which Thy love appoints
There are no bonds for me;
My secret heart has learned the truth
Which makes Thy children free:
A life of self-renouncing love
Is a life of liberty."

_Anna L. Waring_.

"I hold not with you there, Parson!"

The suddenness of this appeal would have startled any one less calm and
self-controlled than the Reverend Robert Tremayne, who was taking off
his surplice in the vestry after morning prayers one Wednesday, when
this unexpected announcement reached him through the partially open
door. But it was not the Rector's habit to show much emotion of any
kind, whatever he might feel.

"Pray you, come forward," he said quietly, in answer to the challenge.

The door, pushed wide open by the person without, revealed a handsome
old man, lithe and upright still,--whose hair was pure white, and his
brown eyes quick and radiant. He marched in and seated himself upon the
settle, grasping a stout oaken stick in both hands, and gazing up into
the Rector's face. His dress, no less than his manners, showed that
notwithstanding the blunt and eccentric nature of his greeting, he was
by birth a gentleman.

"And wherein hold you not with me, Sir, I pray you?" inquired Mr
Tremayne with some amusement.

"In your tolerating of evil opinion."

"I cry you mercy. What evil opinion have I tolerated?"

"If you will tolerate men which hold evil opinions, you must needs
tolerate evil opinion."

"I scantly see that."

"Maybe you see this?" demanded the stranger, pulling a well-worn Bible
from a c