rning to her glass she gazed at her flushed
face for a few moments. A little smile curved her lips. "He did look at
me anyway," she whispered to the face that looked out at her, "he did,
he did," she repeated. Then swiftly she covered her eyes. When she
looked again she saw a face white and drawn. "He would na look at ye."
The words smote her with a chill. Drearily she turned away and went out.

CHAPTER V

THE RECTORY

The Rectory was one of the very oldest of the more substantial of
Blackwater's dwellings. Built of grey limestone from the local quarries,
its solid square mass relieved by its quaint dormer windows was softened
from its primal ugliness by the Boston ivy that had clambered to the
eaves and lay draped about the windows like a soft green mantle. Built
in the early days, it stood with the little church, a gem of Gothic
architecture, within spacious grounds bought when land was cheap. Behind
the house stood the stable, built also of grey limestone, and at one
side a cherry and apple orchard formed a charming background to the grey
buildings with their crowding shrubbery and gardens. A gravelled winding
drive led from the street through towering elms, a picturesque remnant
from the original forest, to the front door and round the house to the
stable yard behind. From the driveway a gravelled footpath led through
the shrubbery and flower garden by a wicket gate to the Church. When
first built the Rectory stood in dignified seclusion on the edge of the
village, but the prosperity of the growing town demanding space for its
inhabitants had driven its streets far beyond the Rectory demesne on
every side, till now it stood, a green oasis of sheltered loveliness,
amid a crowding mass of modern brick dwellings, comfortable enough but
arid of beauty and suggestive only of the utilitarian demands of a busy
manufacturing town.

For nearly a quarter of a century the Rev. Herbert Aveling Templeton,
D.D., LL.D., for whom the Rectory had been built, had ministered in
holy things to the Parish of St. Alban's and had exercised a guiding and
paternal care over the social and religious well-being of the community.
The younger son of one of England's noble families, educated in an
English Public School and University, he represented, in the life of
this new, thriving, bustling town, the traditions and manners of an
English gentleman of the Old School. Still in his early sixties, he
carried his years with all the vigour