That had been Anthony Garstin's life--a dull, eventless sort of
business, the sluggish incrustation of monotonous years. And until Rosa
Blencarn had come to keep house for her uncle, he had never thought
twice on a woman's face.

The Garstins had always been good church-goers, and Anthony, for years,
had acted as churchwarden. It was one summer evening, up at the
vicarage, whilst he was checking the offertory account, that he first
set eyes upon her. She was fresh back from school at Leeds: she was
dressed in a white dress: she looked, he thought, like a London lady.

She stood by the window, tall and straight and queenly, dreamily gazing
out into the summer twilight, whilst he and her uncle sat over their
business. When he rose to go, she glanced at him with quick curiosity;
he hurried away, muttering a sheepish good night.

The next time that he saw her was in church on Sunday. He watched her
shyly, with a hesitating, reverential discretion: her beauty seemed to
him wonderful, distant, enigmatic. In the afternoon, young Mrs. Forsyth,
from Longscale, dropped in for a cup of tea with his mother, and the two
set off gossiping of Rosa Blencarn, speaking of her freely, in tones of
acrimonious contempt. For a long while he sat silent, puffing at his
pipe; but at last, when his mother concluded with, 'She looks t' me fair
stuck-oop, full o' toonish airs an' graces,' despite himself, he burst
out: 'Ye're jest wastin' yer breath wi' that cackle. I reckon Miss
Blencarn's o' a different clay to us folks.' Young Mrs. Forsyth tittered
immoderately, and the next week it was rumoured about the valley that
'Tony Garstin was gone luny over t' parson's niece.'

But of all this he knew nothing--keeping to himself, as was his wont,