nd when the happy mornings came, and George with them, Taffy was as
shy as a lover. So George never guessed. It might have surprised
that very careless young gentleman, when he looked up from his verbs
which govern the dative, and caught Taffy's eye, could he have seen
himself in his halo there.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SQUIRE'S SOUL.

Two years passed, and a third winter. The church was now well on its
way to restoration. The roof had been repaired, the defective
timbers removed and sound ones inserted, the south wall strengthened
with three buttresses, the foundations on that side examined and
shored up. The old Squire did not halt here. Furniture arrived for
the interior; a handsome altar cloth, a small gilt cross, a dozen
hanging lamps, an oaken lectern, cushions, hymn-books, a big new
Bible with purple book-markers. He promised to take out the east
window--which was just a patchwork of common glass, like a cucumber
frame--and replace it with sound mullions and stained glass, in
memory of his only daughter, Honoria's mother. She had run away from
Tredinnis House, and married a penniless captain; and Honoria's
surname was Callastair, though nobody uttered it in the old man's
hearing. Husband and wife had died in India, of cholera, within
three years of their marriage; and the old man had sent for the
child. Having relented so far, he went on to do it thoroughly, in
his own fashion. He neglected Honoria; but she might have anything
she wanted for the asking. It seemed, though, that she wanted very
little.

He allowed Mr. Raymond to choose the design for this window. He only
stipulated that the subject should be Jonah and the whale.
"There's no story'll compare with it for trying a man's faith."

When the window came, and was erected, he complained that it left out
most of the whale, of which the jaws and one wicked little red eye
were all that appeared. "It looks half-hearted. Why didn't they
swim en all in? 'Tis neck or nothin' wi' that story; but they've
made it neck _and_ nothin'. An' after colouring en violet too!"

In return, the Vicar had hunted up some county histories and heraldic
works in the library at Tredinnis, and was now busy re-emblazoning
with his own hand the devices carved on the Moyle pew.

Little by little, too, the congregation had grown. The people came
shyly at first. They mistrusted the Established Church. But they
treated the Vicar with politeness when he visited