"Yes; but Tasso can wait if the--"

"If the tutor wants to play truant; no, my child; and, indeed, the lesson
must be longer than usual to-day, for I fear I shall have to leave you
to-morrow for some days."

"Leave us! why?--leave Brook-Green--impossible!"

"Not at all impossible; for we have now a new vicar, and I must turn
courtier in my old age, and ask him to leave me with my flock. He is at
Weymouth, and has written to me to visit him there. So, Miss Evelyn, I
must give you a holiday task to learn while I am away."

Evelyn brushed the tears from her eyes--for when the heart is full of
affection the eyes easily run over--and clung mournfully to the old man,
as she gave utterance to all her half-childish, half-womanly grief at the
thought of parting so soon with him. And what, too, could her mother do
without him; and why could he not write to the vicar instead of going to
him?

The curate, who was childless and a bachelor, was not insensible to the
fondness of his beautiful pupil, and perhaps he himself was a little more
_distrait_ than usual that morning, or else Evelyn was peculiarly
inattentive; for certain it is that she reaped very little benefit from
the lesson.

Yet he was an admirable teacher, that old man! Aware of Evelyn's quick,
susceptible, and rather fanciful character of mind, he had sought less to
curb than to refine and elevate her imagination. Himself of no ordinary