proper one for a Ruthven.

"You have not told me yet. Is there any one in Hanover whom you think
worthy of you?" Mrs. Meredith asked, just as a footstep was heard, and
the rector of St. Mark's came round the rock where they were sitting.

He had called at the farmhouse, bringing the letter, and with it a
book of poetry, of which Anna had asked the loan.

Taking advantage of her guest's absence, Grandma Humphreys had gone to
a neighbor's after a recipe for making a certain kind of cake of which
Mrs. Meredith was very fond, and only Esther, the servant, and
Valencia, the smart waiting maid, without whom Mrs. Meredith never
traveled, were left in charge.

"Down in the Glen with Mrs. Meredith. Will you be pleased to wait
while I call them?" Esther said, in reply to the rector's inquiries
for Miss Ruthven.

"No, I will find them myself," Mr. Leighton rejoined. Then, as he
thought how impossible it would be to give the letter to Anna in the
presence of her aunt, he slipped it into the book which he bade Esther
take to Miss Ruthven's room.

Knowing how honest and faithful Esther was, the rector felt that he
could trust her without fear for the safety of his letter, sought the
Glen, where the tell-tale blushes which burned on Anna's cheek at
sight of him more than compensated for the coolness with which Mrs.
Meredith greeted him. She, too, had detected Anna's embarrassment, and
when the stranger was presented to her as "Mr. Leighton, our
clergyman," the secret was out.

"Why is it that since the beginning of time girls have run wild after
young ministers?" was her mental comment, as she bowed to Mr.
Leighton, and then quietly inspected his _personnel_.

There was nothing about Arthur Leighton's appearance with which she
could find fault. He was even finer looking than Thornton Hastings,
her _beau ideal_ of a man, and as he stood a moment by Anna's side,
looking down upon her, the woman of the world acknowledged to herself
that they were a well-assorted pair, and as across the chasm of twenty
years there came back to her an episode in her life, when, on just
such a day as this, she had answered "no" to one as young and worthy
as Arthur Leighton, while all the time the heart was clinging to him,
she softened for a moment, and by the memory of the weary years passed
with the rich old man whose name she bore, she was tempted to leave
alone the couple standing there before her, and looking into each
other's eyes with a lo