with wistful eyes her appropriation by his rival, young Wodehouse--whose mother, hooded in the white Shetland shawl, which she had thrown over her cap to come out, sat on a garden-chair with her feet upon the rector’s Persian rug, listening to him while he talked, with the devout admiration which became a member of his flock. The rector was talking politics with General Peronnet, and Mrs. Wodehouse thought it was beautiful to see how thoroughly he understood a subject which was so much out of his way as the abolition of purchase in the army. “If he had been in parliament now!” she said to the general’s wife, who thought her husband was the object of the eulogy. There were two or three other members of this group listening to the rector’s brilliant talk, saying a few words, wise or foolish, as occasion served. Others were walking about upon the lawn, and one lady, with her dress lifted, was hastening off the grass which she had just discovered to be wet with dew. Upon none of them, however, did Mr. Incledon’s attention turn. He followed with his eyes a pair whose young figures grew less and less in the distance, half lost in the darkness. The persistence with which he watched them seemed a reproach to the mother, with whom he talked by fits and starts, and whose anxiety was not at all awakened by the fact that Rose was almost out of sight. “I am afraid Rose is not so careful as she ought to be about the dew on the grass,” she said, half apologetically, half smiling, in reply to his look. “Shall I go and tell her you think so?” said Mr. Incledon, hastily. He was a man of about five-and-thirty, good looking, sensible, and well dispositioned; a personage thoroughly _comme il faut_. He was the sort of suitor whom proper parents love to see approaching a favorite child. He could give his wife everything a woman could desire--provide for her handsomely, surround her with luxury, fill her life with pleasures and prettinesses, and give her an excellent position. And the man himself was free of cranks and crotchets, full of good sense, well educated, good tempered. Where are girls’ eyes, that they do not perceive such advantages? Mrs. Damerel hesitated a moment between sympathy with her child and sympathy with this admirable man. There was a struggle in her mind which was to have the predominance. At length some gleam of recollection or association struck her, and moved the balance in Rose’s favor, who she felt sure did not want Mr. Incledon just at that moment. “Never mind,” she said tranquilly, “it will not hurt her;” and resumed a conversation about the music in the church, which was poor. Mr. Incledon was very musical, but he had no more heart for anthems at that moment than had he never sung a note.