the parish simply adored her, and it was
marvelous how she managed to keep in touch with all the guilds, do her
own housework, and learn to know everyone intimately. Hepsey warned
her that she was attempting to do too much.

"The best parson's wife," she said, "is the one who makes the rest
work, while she attends to her own household, and keeps her health.
Her business is not to do the work of the parson, but to look after
him, keep him well nourished, and cheer him up a little bit when he is
tempted to take the next trolley for Timbuctoo."

The retort was so tempting that Mrs. Betty could not help saying:

"There's not a person in this town who does so much for others as you
do, and who makes so little fuss about it. It's the force of your
example that has led me astray, you see."

"Hm!" Hepsey replied. "I'm glad you called my attention to it. I shall
try to break myself of the habit at once."

As for Maxwell, his practical helpfulness in forwarding the social
life of the place, without in the least applying that phase of his
activities as a lever for spiritual upheavals, and his ready sympathy
for and interest in the needs and doings of young and old,
irrespective of class or caste, gradualy reaped for him the affection
and respect of all sorts and conditions. In fact, the year had been a
pleasant one for him, and was marred by only one circumstance, the
continued and growing hostility of his Senior Warden, Mr. Bascom. From
the first, he had been distinctly unfriendly towards his rector; but
soon after Maxwell's marriage, his annoying opposition was quite open
and pronounced, and the weight of his personal influence was thrown
against every move which Maxwell made towards the development of the
parish life and work.

To those more "in the know" than the Maxwells themselves, it was
evident that a certain keen aggressiveness evinced by the Senior
Warden was foreign to his phlegmatic, brooding character, and it was
clear to them that the actively malicious virus was being administered
by the disappointed Virginia. That she was plotting punishment, in
revenge for wounded _amour propre_, was clear to the initiated, who
were apprehensive of the bomb she was evidently preparing to burst
over the unconscious heads of the rector and his wife. But what could
her scheme be?

Gradually Mrs. Burke noticed that Betty began to show fatigue and
anxiety, and was losing the freshness of her delicate color; while
Donald had be