a part,
Of the thoughts that start
To being when thou art nigh."

--Shelley.

The next day is Sunday, and a very muggy, disagreeable one it proves.
There is an indecision about it truly irritating. A few drops of rain
here and there, a threatening of storm, but nothing positive. Finally,
at eleven o'clock, just as they have given up all hope of seeing any
improvement, it clears up in a degree,--against its will,--and allows
two or three depressed and tearful sunbeams to struggle forth, rather
with a view to dishearten the world than to brighten it.

Sunday at Herst is much the same as any other day. There are no rules,
no restrictions. In the library may be found volumes of sermons waiting
for those who may wish for them. The covers of those sermons are as
clean and fresh to-day as when they were placed on their shelves, now
many years ago, showing how amiably they _have_ waited. You may
play billiards if you like; you need not go to church if you don't
like. Yet, somehow, when at Herst, people always do go,--perhaps
because they needn't, or perhaps because there is such a dearth of
amusements.

Molly, who as yet has escaped all explanation with Tedcastle, coming
down-stairs, dressed for church, and looking unusually lovely, finds
almost all the others assembled before her in the hall, ready to start.

Laying her prayer-books upon a table, while with one hand she gathers
up the tail of her long gown, she turns to say a word or two to Lady
Stafford.

At this moment both Luttrell and Shadwell move toward the books.
Shadwell, reaching them first, lays his hand upon them.

"You will carry them for me?" says Molly, with a bright smile to him;
and Luttrell, with a slight contraction of the brow, falls back again,
and takes his place beside Lady Stafford.

As the church lies at the end of a pleasant pathway through the woods,
they elect to walk it; and so in twos and threes they make their way
under the still beautiful trees.

"It is cold, is it not?" Molly says to Mrs. Darley once, when they come
to an open part of the wood, where they can travel in a body;
"wonderfully so for September."

"Is it? I never mind the cold, or--or anything," rejoins Mrs. Darley,
affectedly, talking for the benefit of the devoted Mottie, who walks
beside her, "laden with golden grain," in the shape of prayer-books and
hymnals of all sorts and sizes, "if I have any one with me that suits
me; that is, a sympatheti