Although I had been attending so well to the sermon, however, my eyes had now and then wandered, not only to Adela's face, but all over the church as well; and I could not help observing, a few pillars off, and partly round a corner, the face of a young man--well, he was about thirty, I should guess--out of which looked a pair of well-opened hazel eyes, with rather notable eyelashes. Not that I, with my own weak pair of washed-out grey, could see the eyelashes at that distance, but I judged it must be their length that gave a kind of feminine cast to the outline of the eyes. Nor should I have noticed the face itself much, had it not seemed to me that those eyes were pursuing a very thievish course; for, by the fact that, as often as I looked their way, I saw the motion of their withdrawal, I concluded that they were stealing glances at, certainly not from, my adopted niece, Adela. This made me look at the face more attentively. I found it a fine, frank, brown, country-looking face.--Could it have anything to do with Adela's condition? Absurd! How could such health and ruddy life have anything to do with the worn pallor of her countenance? Nor did a single glance on the part of Adela reveal that she was aware of the existence of the neighbouring observatory. I dismissed the idea. And I was right, as time showed. We remained to the Communion. When that was over, we walked out of the old dark-roofed church, Adela looking as sad as ever, into the bright cold sunshine, which wrought no change on her demeanour. How could it, if the sun of righteousness, even, had failed for the time? And there, in the churchyard, we found Percy, standing astride of an infant's grave, with his hands in his trowser-pockets, and an air of condescending satisfaction on his countenance, which seemed to say to the dead beneath him: "Pray, don't apologize. I know you are disagreeable; but you can't help it, you know;" --and to the living coming out of church: "Well, have you had your little whim out?" But what he did say, was to Adela: "A merry Christmas to you, Addie! Won't you lean on me? You don't look very stunning." But her sole answer was to take my arm; and so we walked towards the Swanspond. "I suppose that's what they call _Broad Church,_" said the colonel. "Generally speaking, I prefer breadth," I answered, vaguely. "Do you think that's _Broad Church?_" "Oh! I don't know. I suppose it's all right. He ran me through, anyhow." "I hope it _is_ all right," I answered. "It suits me." "Well, I'm sure you know ten times better than I do. He seems a right sort of man, whatever sort of clergyman he may be." "Who is he--can you tell me?" "Why, don't you know? That's our new curate, Mr. Armstrong." "Curate!" I exclaimed. "A man like that! And at his years too! He must be forty. You astonish me!" "Well, I don't know. He may be forty. He is our curate; that is all I can answer for." "He was my companion in the train last night."