creatures.

"Is any life?" answered Alick, his eyes turned to the vague distance.

"Not fully: the spirit of progress, working by discontent, forbids the
social stagnation of rest and thankfulness; but we can come to something
that suffices for our daily wants if it does not satisfy all our
longings. Work in harmony with our nature, and doing good here and there
when we can, both these help us on. But the work must be harmonious and
the good we do manifest."

"So far as that goes, Church-work is pleasant to me--all, indeed, I care
for or am fit for; but North Aston is stony ground," said Alick.

"Can you wonder? When the husbandman-in-chief is such a man as Mr.
Birkett, you must make your account with stones and weeds. The spiritual
cannot flourish under the hand of the unspiritual; and, considering the
pastor, the flock is far from bad."

"That may be, but we do not like to live only in comparatives," said
Alick. "I confess I should be happier in a cure where I was more of one
mind with my rector than I am here, and not decried or ridiculed on
account of every scheme for good that I might propose. Parish-work here
is shamefully neglected, but Mr. Birkett will not let me do anything to
mend it."

"Ah!" said Mr. Gryce, catching a luckless curculio by the way, "that is
bad. A more harmonious one would certainly be, as you say, far more
agreeable. Or a little parish of your own--a parish, however small,
which would be all your own, and you not under the control of any one
below your diocesan? How would that do? That would be my affair if I
were in the Church."

Alick's face lightened. "Yes," he said, "that is my dream--at least one
of them. I would not care how small the place might be, if I had supreme
control and might work unhindered in my own way."

"It will come," said Mr. Gryce cheerily. "All things come in time to him
who knows how to wait."

"Ah, if I could believe that!" sighed Alick, thinking of Leam.

"Take my word for it," returned Mr. Gryce. "It will do you no harm to
have a dash of rose-color in your rather sombre life; and Hope, if it
tells flattering tales, does not always tell untrue ones."

"I fear my hope has flattered me untruly," said Alick, his faithful
heart still on Leam.

Mr. Gryce captured a caterpillar wandering across the road. "Conduct is
fate," he said. "If this poor fellow had not been troubled with a fit of
restlessness, but had been content to lie safely hidden among the
gras