sang, she listened, like one undergoing initiation, with a tender
aspiring light in her eyes, and an eager mobility of expression.

Mrs. Colwood was more critical. The clergyman who preached the sermon
did not, in fact, please her at all. He was a thin High Churchman, with
an oblong face and head, narrow shoulders, and a spare frame. He wore
spectacles, and his voice was disagreeably pitched. His sermon was
nevertheless remarkable. A bare yet penetrating style; a stern view of
life; the voice of a prophet, and apparently the views of a
socialist--all these he possessed. None of them, it might have been
thought, were especially fitted to capture either the female or the
rustic mind. Yet it could not be denied that the congregation was
unusually good for a village church; and by the involuntary sigh which
Miss Mallory gave as the sermon ended, Mrs. Colwood was able to gauge
the profound and docile attention with which one at least had
listened to it.

After church there was much lingering in the churchyard for the exchange
of Christmas greetings. Mrs. Colwood found herself introduced to the
Vicar, Mr. Lavery; to a couple of maiden ladies of the name of Bertram,
who seemed to have a good deal to do with the Vicar, and with the Church
affairs of the village; and to an elderly couple, Dr. and Mrs.
Roughsedge, white-haired, courteous, and kind, who were accompanied by a
soldier son, in whom it was evident they took a boundless pride. The
young man, of a handsome and open countenance, looked at Miss Mallory as
much as good manners allowed. She, however, had eyes for no one but the
Vicar, with whom she started, _tête-à-tête_, in the direction of
the Vicarage.

Mrs. Colwood followed, shyly making acquaintance with the Roughsedges,