the absence of the
pastor in Europe. The time mentioned was ten months and Ringfield sat
down at once to consider the importance of this offer. He would be at
last in a cultivated community. Much would be expected of him and he
would have every chance to put forth what was best in him. For several
years he had been labouring on the missionary circuit and the work was
hard indeed, with slender results. Here was sufficient remuneration,
comfortable housing in a more sympathetic climate, and the prospect of
receiving a still more important call in the future should he make his
mark. Such considerations, if mundane, need not also be mercenary;
each man is worthy of his hire and his pulse beat in pleased excitement
as he viewed the rosy outlook.

But--Miss Clairville! A vague foreboding of the truth flitted through
his brain; men wiser in love and affairs of the affections than our
young Methodist minister have been self-deceived, and although he
sternly put her image away he dimly avowed to himself that she was
already occupying far too much of his thought. Here was a clear way
opened, or so he imagined, referring each move as it occurred to the
guidance and knowledge of the Higher Power, and he could find no other
than an affirmative answer to the letter which he kept turning over in
his pocket, and still kept reading through the evening in the general
room. He had excused himself from the already over-convivial group on
the front verandah, and being provided with paper, sat at the table
composing his reply.

The lineaments of his singularly fine and noble countenance were easily
seen through the window where the guides, M. Desnoyers and Poussette
were sitting, and the vision of the black-coated, serious young scribe
inditing what he had informed them was a very "important" letter,
subdued the incipient revelry.

Poussette was uneasy. He had not yet received any direct answer from
Ringfield to his own offer, and for many reasons he preferred to attach
and retain him rather than any other "Parson" he had ever encountered.
But Ringfield was wrapped in his own thoughts and quite unconscious of
the highly improving spectacle he made, lifting his eyes only to nod
pleasantly to Mme. Poussette who had glided in and was sitting by the
window. His letters were three: one to Mr. Beddoe who had invited him
to Radford, another to his relatives on the farm at Grand River, and a
third to Miss Clairville. He had not hesita