ng arrived at a suitable age, she is this
summer to be introduced into society at Saratoga, while I am
expected to fall in love with her at once and make her Mrs.
Hastings before another winter. Now, in your straightforward way
of putting things, don't imagine that Mrs. Meredith has
deliberately told me all this, for she has not, but I understand
her perfectly, and know exactly what she expects me to do.
Whether I do or not depends partly upon how I like Miss Anna,
partly upon how she likes me, and partly upon yourself.

"Now, Arthur, you know, I was always famous for presentiments or
fancies, as you termed them, and the latest of these is that you
like Anna Ruthven. Do you? Tell me, honor bright, and by the
memory of the many scrapes you got me out of, and the many more
you kept me from getting into, I will treat Miss Anna as gingerly
and brotherly as if she was already your wife. I like her
picture, which I have seen, and believe I shall like the girl,
but if you say that by looking at her with longing eyes I shall
be guilty of breaking some one of the ten commandments--I don't
know which--why, then, hands off at once. That's fair, and will
prove to you that, although not a parson like yourself, there is
still a spark of honor, if not of goodness, in the breast of

"Yours truly,
"THORNTON HASTINGS.

"If you were here this afternoon, I'd take you to drive after a
pair of bays which are to sweep the stakes at Saratoga this
summer, and I'd treat you to a finer cigar than often finds its
way to Hanover. Shall I send you out a box, or would your people
pull down the church about the ears of a minister wicked enough
to smoke? Again adieu.

"T. H."

There was a half-amused smile on the face of the rector as he
finished the letter, so like its thoughtless, lighthearted writer, and
wondered what the Widow Rider, across the way, would say of a
clergyman who smoked cigars and rode after a race-horse with such a
gay scapegrace as Thornton Hastings. Then the amused look passed away,
and was succeeded by a shadow of pain as the rector remembered the
real import of Thornton's letter, and felt that he had no right to
say, "I have a claim on Anna Ruthven; you must not interfere." For he
had no claim on her, though half his