To LORIN DELAND
This Book
ALREADY MORE HIS THAN MINE
IS DEDICATED.

Boston, _December 25th, 1887_.




JOHN WARD, PREACHER.




CHAPTER I.


The evening before Helen Jeffrey's wedding day, the whole household at
the rectory came out into the garden.

"The fact is," said Dr. Howe, smiling good-naturedly at his niece, "the
importance of this occasion has made everybody so full of suppressed
excitement one can't breathe in the house."

And indeed a wedding in Ashurst had all the charm of novelty. "Why, bless
my soul," said the rector, "let me see: it must be ten--no, twelve years
since Mary Drayton was married, and that was our last wedding. Well, we
couldn't stand such dissipation oftener; it would wake us up."