overtook him.

"How do you do, Mr. Lashmar!"

"Why--Miss Bride!" exclaimed the vicar. "What a long time since we saw
you! Have you just come?"

"I'm on a little holiday. How are you? And how is Mrs. Lashmar?"

Miss Bride had a soberly decisive way of speaking, and an aspect which
corresponded therewith; her figure was rather short, well-balanced, apt
for brisk movement; she held her head very straight, and regarded the
world with a pair of dark eyes suggestive of anything but a sentimental
nature. Her grey dress, black jacket, and felt hat trimmed with a
little brown ribbon declared the practical woman, who thinks about her
costume only just as much as is needful; her dark-brown hair was coiled
in a plait just above the nape, as if neatly and definitely put out of
the way. She looked neither more nor less than her age, which was eight
and twenty. At first sight her features struck one as hard and
unsympathetic, though tolerably regular; watching her as she talked or
listened, one became aware of a mobility which gave large
expressiveness, especially in the region of the eyebrows, which seemed
to move with her every thought. Her lips were long, and ordinarily
compressed in the line of conscious self-control. She had a very
shapely neck, the skin white and delicate; her facial complexion was
admirably pure and of warmish tint.

"And where are you living, Miss Bride?" asked Mr. Lashmar, regarding
her with curiosity.

"At Hollingford; that is to say, near it. I am secretary to Lady
Ogram--I don't know whether you ever heard of her?"

"Ogram? I know the name. I am very glad indeed to hear that you have
such a pleasant position. And your father? It is very long since I
heard from him."

"He has a curacy at Liverpool, and seems to be all right. My mother
died about two years ago."

The matter-of-fact tone in which this information was imparted caused
Mr. Lashmar to glance at the speaker's face. Though very little of an
observer, he was comforted by an assurance that Miss Bride's features
were less impassive than her words. Indeed, the cold abruptness with
which she spoke was sufficient proof of feeling roughly subdued.

Some six years had now elapsed since the girl's father, after acting
for a short time as curate to Mr. Lashmar, accepted a living in another
county. The technical term, in this case, was rich in satiric meaning;
Mr. Bride's incumbency quickly reduced him to pauperism. At the end of
the first twelv