d the village choir, and the rector was painfully conscious that far
too much of earth was mingled with his devotional feelings during the
moments when, the singing over, he walked from his armchair to the
pulpit and heard the rustle of the crimson curtain in the organ loft
as it was drawn back, disclosing to view the five heads of which
Anna's was the center. It was very wrong, he knew, and to-day he had
prayed earnestly for pardon, when, after choosing his text, "Simon,
Simon, lovest thou me?" instead of plunging at once into his subject,
he had, without a thought of what he was doing, idly written upon a
scrap of paper lying near, "Anna, Anna, lovest thou me, more than
these?" the these, referring to the wealthy Thornton Hastings, his old
classmate in college, who was going to Saratoga this very summer, for
the purpose of meeting Anna Ruthven and deciding if she would do to
become Mrs. Thornton Hastings, and mistress of the house on Madison
Square. With a bitter groan at the enormity of his sin, and a fervent
prayer for forgiveness, the rector had torn the slips of paper in
shreds and given himself so completely to his work that his sermon was
done a full hour earlier than usual, and he was free to indulge in
reveries of Anna for as long a time as he pleased.

"I wonder if Mrs. Meredith has come," he thought, as, with his feet
upon the window-sill, he sat looking across the meadow-land to where
the chimneys and gable roof of Captain Humphreys' house was visible,
for Captain Humphreys was Anna Ruthven's grandfather, and it was there
she had lived since she was three years old.

As if thoughts of Mrs. Meredith reminded him of something else, the
rector took from the drawer of his writing table a letter received the
previous day, and, opening to the second page, read again as follows:

"Are you going anywhere this summer? Of course not, for so long
as there is an unbaptized child, or a bed-ridden old woman in the
parish, you must stay at home, even if you do grow as rusty as
did Professor Cobden's coat before we boys made him a present of
a new one. I say, Arthur, there was a capital fellow spoiled when
you took to the ministry, with your splendid talents, and rare
gift for making people like and believe in you.

"Now, I suppose you will reply that for this denial of self you
look for your reward in heaven, and I suppose you are right; but
as I have no reason to think I have any stock in