ly and sadly
down, thinking of what might have been.

When service was over the ringers met by previous arrangement, and
startled Heydon Hay with a peal. Ezra was at Rachel's side when the
flood of sound descended on them and drowned his salutation. But they
shook hands, and walked away side by side until they reached the front
of Ezra's house, when Rachel turned to say good-by.

"I'll walk a little way if you'll permit it, Miss Blythe," said Ezra;
and the old maid assenting, they walked on until the strenuous clang of
the bells was softened into music. "They'll mek a handsome couple," said
Ezra, breaking the silence.

"Upon acquaintance with the young man," said Rachel, "I discover many
admirable qualities in him." The speech was prim still, and was likely
to continue so, but it had lost something, and had gained something. It
would be hard to say what it had lost or gained, and yet the change
was there, and Ezra marked it, and thought the voice tenderer and more
womanly. Perhaps the flood-tide of youth which had swept over her heart
at their reconciliation had not entirely ebbed away, and its inward
music lent an echo to her speech. If it were there still, it was that
which lent some of its own liquid sweetness to her look. Not much,
perhaps, and yet a little, and discernible.

There were half a dozen homeward-going worshippers ahead of them, a
hundred yards away, and a handful more a hundred yards behind, as Ezra's
backward glance discerned. They were all moving in the same direction,
and at pretty much the same pace. The air was very quiet, and the clear
music of the bells made no hinderance to their talk.

"I'm thinkin', Miss Blythe," said Ezra, slowly, walking with his hands
clasped behind him and his downcast eyes just resting on her face and
gliding away again, "I'm thinkin' as the spectacle of them two young
lives being linked the one with the other gives a sort of a lonely
seeming to the old age as you and me has got to look to."

"Perhaps so, Mr. Gold," said Rachel, stopping with dry brevity in her
walk and holding out her hand. "I must hasten homeward. I wish you a
good-morning."

Ezra took her proffered hand in his, shook it gravely, and accepted his
dismissal.

Not many newspapers came to Heydon Hay, and the few that found their way
thither reached the regular subscribers a day or two after their news
was stale to London readers. Ezra got his _Argus_ regularly every
Tuesday morning, and in fine w