absolved himself from ever having had a thought of matrimony connected
with Lucy Harcourt. He had admired her greatly and loved to wander
with her amid the Alpine scenery, listening to her wild bursts of
enthusiasm, and watching the kindling light in her blue eyes, and the
color coming to her thin, pale cheeks, as she gazed upon some scene of
grandeur, nestling close to him as for protection, when the path was
fraught with peril.

Afterwards, in Venice, beneath the influence of those glorious
moonlight nights, he had been conscious of a deeper feeling which, had
he tarried longer at the siren's side, might have ripened into love.
But he left her in time to escape what he felt would have been a most
unfortunate affair for him, for, sweet and beautiful as she was, Lucy
was not the wife for a clergyman to choose. She was not like Anna
Ruthven, whom both young and old had said was so suitable for him.

"And just because she is suitable, I may not win her, perhaps," he
thought, as he paced up and down his library, wondering when she would
answer his letter, and wondering next how he could persuade Lucy
Harcourt that between the young theological student, sailing in a
gondola through the streets of Venice, and the rector of St. Mark's,
there was a vast difference; that while the former might be Arthur
with perfect propriety, the latter should be Mr. Leighton, in Anna's
presence, at least.

And yet the rector of St. Mark's was conscious of a pleasurable
emotion, even now, as he recalled the time when she had, at his own
request, first called him Arthur, her bird-like voice hesitating just
a little, and her soft eyes looking coyly up to him, as she said:

"I am afraid that Arthur is hardly the name by which to call a
clergyman."

"I am not in orders yet, so let me be Arthur to you. I love to hear
you call me so, and you to me shall be Lucy," was his reply.

A mutual clasp of hands had sealed the compact, and that was the
nearest to love-making of anything which had passed between them, if
we except the time when he had said good-by, and wiped away a tear
which came unbidden to her eye as she told him how lonely she would be
without him.

Hers was a nature as transparent as glass, and the young man, who for
days had paced the ship's deck so moodily, was fighting back the
thoughts which had whispered that in his intercourse with her he had
not been all guiltless, and that if in her girlish heart there was a
feeling for h