sir," said Fuller, with a chuckle, "her's bound to look her best
just now."

"Father," said Ruth, with an amazingly sudden vivacity, "I want to speak
to you. Excuse us, Mr. De Blacquaire."

Her face was of the color of the rose from brow to chin, and her eyes
were as shy as ever in spite of her vivacity. They met Ferdinand's
smiling, conquering glance for a moment, and no more. He raised his hat
and withdrew. He had shot his arrow, and had hit the white. He could
afford to retire contented for the moment, and he did so. But by-and-by
that young Gold, who played first fiddle in the quartette, came up with
his auburn mane, with his fiddle tucked under his arm, and stopped to
talk with Ruth and Fuller. Ferdinand, exchanging a friendly word or two
with a doubtful voter, watched with interest. She was blushing still,
and still surveying the ground, and marking patterns on it with the toe
of her pretty little boot--conscious of his glance, the puss, no doubt,
and was posing a little for his admiration.

Ferdinand sat in the Barfield pew, and Ruth sat opposite. Why, the
philtre was working more and more! She was so conscious that she seemed
scarcely able to raise her eyes; and when, as happened no less than
three times, she met his glance, she looked down in the sweetest
confusion. The victorious young gentleman was so absorbed in his own
reflections that he took but little note of the service, and suffered
his attention to it to be for the most part mechanical. But on a sudden
a certain quite indefinable sense of general interest touched him.
Something was doing, or was going to be done, which was not altogether
in the common.

"I publish banns of marriage," said Parson Hales, in those generous old
port-wine tones of his, "between Reuben Gold, bachelor, and Ruth Fuller,
spinster, both of this parish, and--"

Mr. Ferdinand de Blacquaire realized with a shocking suddenness and
vividness that he was an ass and a puppy. He learned later on that he
was not absolutely either, but he gets a twinge out of "I publish banns
of marriage," even unto this day.

Sennacherib, who sat near Reuben in the music-gallery, nudged him with
his elbow.

"Knowest what's what?" he whispered, to the younger man's prodigious
scandal and discomfort. "Hast got the best wench i' the parish."

Reuben would willingly have chosen another time and place for the
receipt of congratulations.

Both Rachel and Ezra were in church, and each looked serious