"This grows worse and worse," said the rector. "Come, Helen, when an
intelligent young woman, I might say a bright young woman, makes a
commonplace speech, it is a mental yawn, and denotes exhaustion. You and
Lois are tired; run up-stairs. Vanish! I say. Good night, dear child, and
God bless you!"




CHAPTER II.


Ashurst Rectory, in a green seclusion of vines and creepers, stood close
to the lane,--Strawberry Lane it was called, because of a tradition that
wild strawberries grew there. The richness of the garden was scarcely
kept in bounds by its high fence; the tops of the bushes looked over it,
and climbing roses shed their petals on the path below, and cherries,
blossoms, and fruit were picked by the passer-by. "There is enough for us
inside," said the rector.

The house itself was of gray stone, which seemed to have caught, where it
was not hidden by Virginia creepers and wistaria, the mellow coloring of
the sunset light, which flooded it from a gap in the western hills. Its
dormer-windows, their roofs like brown caps bent about their ears, had
lattices opening outward; and from one of these Lois Howe, on the evening
of Helen's wedding day, had seen her father wandering about the garden,
with the red setter at his heels, and had gone down to join him.

"I wonder," she said, as she wound her round young arm in his, which was