lity on the part of a vain man.

Whether Ruth's mind was one of this class or not we do not pretend to
know.

CHAPTER XIV.

It was Sunday morning at Atherstone. In the dining-room, breakfasting
alone, for he had come down late, was Sir Charles Danvers. His sudden
arrival on the previous Saturday was easily accounted for. When he had
casually walked into the drawing-room late in the evening, he had
immediately and thoroughly explained the reasons of his unexpected
arrival. It seemed odd that he should have come to Atherstone, in the
midland counties, "on his way" between two shooting visits in the north,
but so it was. It might have been thought that one of his friends would
have been willing to keep him two days longer, or receive him two days
earlier; but no doubt every one knows his own affairs best, and Charles
might certainly, "at his age," as he was so fond of saying, be expected
to know his.

Anyhow, there he was, leaning against the open window, coffee-cup in
hand, lazily watching the dwindling figures of Ralph and Evelyn, with
Molly between them, disappearing in the direction of Greenacre church,
hard by.

The morning mist still lingered on the land, and veiled the distance
with a tender blue. And up across the silver fields, and across the
standing armies of the yellowing corn, the sound of church bells came
from Slumberleigh, beyond the river; bringing back to Charles, as to us
all, old memories, old hopes, old visions of early youth, long
cherished, long forgotten.

The single bell of Greenacre was giving forth a slow, persistent,
cracked invitation to true believers, as an appropriate prelude to Mr.
Smith's eloquence; but Charles did not hear its testimony.

He was listening to the Slumberleigh bells. Was that the first chime or
the second?

Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. Should he go to church?

He smiled at the idea. It was a little late to think of that. Besides he
had let the others start, and he disliked that refuge of mildew and
dust, Greenacre.

There was Slumberleigh!

There went the bells again!

Slumberleigh! Absurd! Why, he should positively have to run to get there
before the First Lesson; and that mist meant heat, or he was much
mistaken.

Charles contemplated the mist for a few seconds.

Tang, teng, ting, tong, tung!

He certainly always made a point of going to church at his own home. A
good example is, after all, just as important in one place as another.