young persons, it seemed too like that of brother and sister to afford
much ground for Mr. Fielden's anxiety or hope.

From his window the vicar observed the still attitude of the young orphan
for a few moments; then he pushed aside his books, rose, and approached
her. At the sound of his tread she woke from her revery and bounded
lightly towards him.

"Ah, you would not see me before!" she said, in a voice in which there
was the slightest possible foreign accent, which betrayed the country in
which her childhood had been passed; "I peeped in twice at the window. I
wanted you so much to walk to the village. But you will come now, will
you not?" added the girl, coaxingly, as she looked up at him under the
shade of her straw hat.

"And what do you want in the village, my pretty Helen?"

"Why, you know it is fair day, and you promised Bessie that you would buy
her a fairing,--to say nothing of me."

"Very true, and I ought to look in; it will help to keep the poor people
from drinking. A clergyman should mix with his parishioners in their
holidays. We must not associate our office only with grief and sickness
and preaching. We will go. And what fairing are you to have?"

"Oh, something very brilliant, I promise you! I have formed grand
notions of a fair. I am sure it must be like the bazaars we read of last
night in that charming 'Tour in the East.'"

The vicar smiled, half benignly, half anxiously. "My dear child, it is