very fond of Kate; he will hardly have her controlled at all."

"I have been in to see my church! John Cale has been doing its honours
for me," smiled Mr. Grame. "It is a pretty little edifice."

"Yes, and I hope you will like it; I hope you will like the parish,"
frankly returned Lucy.

"I shall be sure to do that, I think. As soon, at least, as I can feel
convinced that it is to be really mine," he added, with a quaint
expression. "When I heard, a week ago, that Captain Monk had presented
me--an entire stranger to him--with the living of Church Leet, I could
not believe it. It is not often that a nameless curate, without
influence, is spontaneously remembered."

"It is not much of a living," said Lucy, meeting the words half
jestingly. "Worth, I believe, but about a hundred and sixty pounds
a-year."

"But that is a great rise for me--and I have a house to myself large
and beautiful--and am a Vicar and no longer a curate," he returned,
laughingly. "I cannot _imagine_, though, how Captain Monk came to give
it me. Have you any idea how it was, Miss Carradyne?"

Lucy's face flushed. She could not tell this gentleman the truth: that
another clergyman had been fixed upon, one who would have been
especially welcome to the parishioners; that Captain Monk had all but
nominated him to the living. But it chanced to reach the Captain's ears
that this clergyman had expressed his intention of holding the Communion
Service monthly, instead of quarterly as heretofore, so he put the