as never been
put between shafts before, for I had quite a sharp tussle with him about
passing that threshing machine in Bumpass's field."

"Oh, that roans all right if you don't fret him," replied Abel, who had
a poor opinion of the rector's horsemanship. "Stop jerking at his mouth,
and give him his head."

But the Reverend Orlando, having drifted naturally into the habit
of thinking that he had been placed here to offer, not to receive,
instruction, appeared a little restive under the other's directions.

"I flatter myself that I possess the understanding of horses," he
replied. "I've never had a disagreement with Harry, though I've driven
him every day since I've been here."

"All the same I'd keep a steady hand if I were going by that threshing
machine up the road," rejoined Abel who magnanimously refrained from
adding that he had assisted at the purchase of Harry, and that horse had
been fourteen, if a day, when he passed into the clergyman's keeping.

A healthful glow suffused Mr. Mullen's cheeks, while he struggled
valiantly to conceal his annoyance. He was very young, and in spite of
his early elevation to a position of spiritual leadership, he remained
after all merely an ordinary mortal. So he stiffened perceptibly on
the shiny seat of his gig, and gave a sharp pull at the reins, which
wrenched the head of the young roan away from a clump of sassafras.

"It is better for every man to follow his own ideas, don't you think,
Mr. Revercomb?" he replied, advocating in his resentment a principle
which he would have been the first to rap soundly had it been advanced
by one of his parishioners. "I mean, of course, in the matter of
driving."

"When do you go?" asked Judy suddenly, and turned her face away because
she could not trust herself to meet his beautiful, earnest eyes.

"Within a fortnight. It is important that I should assume my new
responsibilities immediately."

"And you won't come back ever again?" The meadows swam in a blur before
her eyes, and she thought of the purple velvet slippers which would
never be finished.

He was a kind-hearted young man, who wished well to all the world, and
especially to those of his congregation who had profited spiritually
by his sermons. If he had suspected the existence of Judy's passion, it
would undoubtedly have distressed him--but he did not suspect it, owing
to a natural obliquity of vision, which kept him looking away from the
world as it is in the directi