in my old age, and ask him to leave me with my flock. He is at
Weymouth, and has written to me to visit him there. So, Miss Evelyn, I
must give you a holiday task to learn while I am away."

Evelyn brushed the tears from her eyes--for when the heart is full of
affection the eyes easily run over--and clung mournfully to the old man,
as she gave utterance to all her half-childish, half-womanly grief at
the thought of parting so soon with him. And what, too, could her mother
do without him; and why could he not write to the vicar instead of going
to him?

The curate, who was childless and a bachelor, was not insensible to the
fondness of his beautiful pupil, and perhaps he himself was a little
more _distrait_ than usual that morning, or else Evelyn was peculiarly
inattentive; for certain it is that she reaped very little benefit from
the lesson.

Yet he was an admirable teacher, that old man! Aware of Evelyn's quick,
susceptible, and rather fanciful character of mind, he had sought
less to curb than to refine and elevate her imagination. Himself of
no ordinary abilities, which leisure had allowed him to cultivate, his
piety was too large and cheerful to exclude literature--Heaven's best
gift--from the pale of religion. And under his care Evelyn's mind had
been duly stored with the treasures of modern genius, and her judgment
strengthened by the criticisms of a graceful and generous taste.

In that sequestered hamlet, the young heiress had been trained to
adorn her future station; to appreciate the arts and elegances that
distinguish (no matter what the rank) the refined from the low, better
than if she had been brought up under the hundred-handed Briareus of
fashionable education. Lady Vargrave, indeed, like most persons of
modest pretensions and imperfect cultivation, was rather inclined to
overrate the advantages to be derived from book-knowledge; and she was
never better pleased than when she saw Evelyn opening the monthly parcel
from London, and delightedly poring over volumes which Lady Vargrave
innocently believed to be reservoirs of inexhaustible wisdom.

But this day Evelyn would not read, and the golden verses of Tasso lost
their music to her ear. So the curate gave up the lecture, and placed
a little programme of studies to be conned during his absence in her
reluctant hand; and Sultan, who had been wistfully licking his paws for
the last half-hour, sprang up and caracoled once more into the garden;
and the