llect
that was what the ladies were saying. Silly girl, she has gone, after
all; but I must put a stop to that. How she stared at you, Dick, to be
sure!"

"Yes, she has got a sharp pair of eyes. I think she will know me again,"
said Dick, with what seemed to the rector rather forced gaiety. "Rather
a pretty little girl, all the same. What did you call her? Is she one of
your parishioners? She looked mighty frightened of you."

"Lizzie Hampson," said the rector. "She is the granddaughter of the
old woman at the shop. She is half a foreigner I believe: but I always
thought--Bless me! Emily will be very sorry, but very angry too, I am
afraid. I wish I had not seen it. I wish we had not come this way."

"Do you think you are obliged to tell? It was only by accident that
we saw her," said Cavendish. "It would hurt nobody if you kept it to
yourself."

"I daresay the poor little thing meant no harm," said the rector to
himself; "it is natural to want to make a little more money. I am
entering into temptation, but I cannot help it. Do you think, after all,
I might say nothing about seeing her? We should not have seen her, you
know, if we had come home the other way."

"Give her the benefit of the possibility," said Dick, with a short laugh.
But he seemed to be affected too, which was wonderfully sympathetic and
nice of him, with what troubled the rector so much. He scarcely talked
at all for the rest of the way. And though he was perhaps as gay as ever
at lunch, there came over him from time to time a curious abstraction,
quite out of character with Dick Cavendish. In the afternoon, Warrender
and Chatty came in, as they had been invited to tea (not Minnie, which
satisfied Mrs. Wilberforce's sense of right), and a very quiet game of
croquet, a sort of whisper of a game, under their breath, as it were,
was played. And in this way the day passed. The visitor declared in the
evening that he had enjoyed himself immensely. But he had a headache,
and instead of coming in to prayers went out in the dark for a walk;
which was not at all the sort of thing which Mrs. Wilberforce liked her
visitors to do.

CHAPTER XIII.

Dick Cavendish went out for a walk. It was a little chilly after the
beautiful day; there was rain in the air, and neither moon nor stars,
which in the country, where there are no means of artificial lighting,
makes it unpleasant for walking. He went right into the big clump of
laurels, and speared himself