peed on, the

ly hunt t

art goes a

res in a

kesp

d upon the purple summits of the hills. Agatha supposed there would be a pleasant walk to church; Paulina said she had heard good accounts of the services in th

ir with Mrs. Best. After their decorous stillness at breakfast, it was a contrast to hear the merry voices and laughter outside, but

her age and appearance, and altogether her air was more stylish than the cou

nd mantle had their inconveniences in walking through the red mud of the lanes, impeded by books and umbrella, which left

antial craft as poor Mrs. Best, used to church-going along a str

icturesque was the grey structure outside, but within modernism had not done much; the chancel was feebly fitted after the ideas o

condemned cell, and the pulpit towered above them with a faded gree

lchild voices, and the sermon from an elderly man was a good one; but when the move to go out was made, and the young one

element of ou

ody to b

o they shut on

apsy's roving eye

comes there but stately old farmers and their smart daughters. I saw one with a Gainsb

, you see. Being 'emparocked in a pew

to show you what impos

aborigines at their devotions. Conspicuous was a not ungraceful young female, whose head, ornamented with a plume of feathers, towered above t

," came Magdalen's voice from behind. "Yo

Best observed, "You were very merry." They could not speak of the cause. Perhaps Magdalen divined something, for she said,

isms, and indeed the task of cheering and dragging on Mrs. Best was quite enough to occupy her. There was only three years difference in their ages,

s to be thought of for her. Magdalen explained that when the days would be longer, she thought of walking to Rockston

tifully fitted up by Lord Rotherwood and Sir

" asked M

; further by the road. You will find your

Paulina. "I am sure there is a r

rch, but that is very satisfactory, and I go to one or other of the

g so many churches," said Mrs.

e, I am faithful enough to go to my parish in the morning, but I think we may be discursive afte

, and then from Paulina, but none was awakened. The girls clustered

for my Lord and Sir J

because it is the real co

went to see it in case Eccles and Beamst

d Paulina, with

e an embargo on all acquaintance

ock of crystal as regards them, whatever swells may req

uppose the old friends slide of

nd Thekla ran in to say

fashions of botany were quite exploded. This was a sentiment, and it gave hopes of something like an argument and a conversation, but they were at that moment overtaken by the neighbouring farmer's wife, who wanted to give Miss Prescott some information about a setting of eggs, which s

gh not a pretty one; but Magdalen recollected, with some pain, her father's pleasure in the selection of saintly names for his little daughters, and she wondered how he would have liked to hear them thus transmuted. There had been something bordering on sentiment in her father's character, and

inging had the refined tones that belong to the music of cultivated people. The congregation was evidently of poor folks from the hamlet, dependants of the great house, and the family itself, a grey-haired, fine-looking general, a tall dark-eyed lady, a tall youth, a schoolboy, an

towards acquaintance had not yet been made. All that was known was that there were Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield, connections of Lord Rotherwood, who owned most of the Rockstone property, and who with his family had once

hey will cal

kely the

obody

to tell me how we can be of use here. I believe t

ople had left cards, and whether there were any parties, garden or evening, at Rockstone-more than Magdalen could yet an

nobody but that old clergyman, who

t, thank goodne

y hindering the children from going to

her no better than an old governess, how

l last," said Agatha. "The

be just smart enough to be taken for swells, and know nobody; and the swells won't h

t help laughing

of humanit

ish my jou

he sweet mus

the sound

r four churches, and condemned to the most behind the world of them all, and then to the

common sense than the oth

school; and the M.A. is a good old soul at the bottom, and you may

alled, and a bishop-though Bishop Fulmort was always out on some expedition among the colonists or the natives, but among his clergy there was always Sunday service. In fact, Magdalen thought the good old lady expected to find a town more like Filsted than the Goyle. Th

uld be near kind people; and presently Mrs. Best,

It is not a

f Lord Rotherwood's. I once met one of his little girls, who came to Castle Towers with the Rot

mployed in the bank at Filsted when Magdalen was a very young girl. His father had come down suddenly, had found debt and dissipation, had broken all off decidedly, and no mor