There sat the two girls in the Water House pew this October evening, everybody in the parish church knowing their history, and thinking it a very pretty trait of character in Mr. Harefield’s daughter that she should be so fond of her humble friend Bella; for it must be understood that Mr. Scratchell, never having been able to struggle out of the morass of poverty or to keep more than one maid-servant, hardly took his full professional rank in the village, or was even regarded as a gentleman by Act of Parliament. It was a recognised fact that without Mr. Harefield’s business, the collection of rents, and drawing up of leases, and ejection of troublesome tenants, and so on, the Scratchells could hardly have gone on existing, outside the workhouse, the solicitor’s practice, over and above this agency, being of the pettiest and most desultory order. Bella’s pretty little Dresden china face was bent over her book as the choir and clergy came filing in. But though Bella’s head was gracefully bent, she gave a little upward glance under her auburn eyelashes, and contrived to see that look in Beatrix’s face which was in itself the beginning of a history. And then the service began, and both girls seemed absorbed in their devotions, while Mrs. Dulcimer, contemplating them benignantly from the vicarage pew, thought what a pretty pair they made, and wondered whom she could pitch upon as a husband for Bella. The poor little thing ought to be married. She was not a great heiress like Beatrix, but it was not the less incumbent upon some good-natured friend to find her a husband--nay, it was a Christian duty to do so. Matrimony would be the poor child’s only escape from straitened circumstances and a life of toil. Everybody knew what a struggle these poor Scratchells had to make for the bare privilege of living. ‘She’s rather pretty, and certainly graceful,’ mused Mrs. Dulcimer, while one of the wicked kings of Israel was misconducting himself. Even a clergyman’s wife’s mind will occasionally wander, though her husband may be reading the lesson. ‘I wish I could think of some one to suit her,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer to herself. And then it chanced that her glance roamed absently to the reading-desk, where Cyril’s crisp brown hair and strongly marked brow showed above the open Prayer-book. ‘The very man!’ Mrs. Dulcimer ejaculated inwardly, in an ecstasy of good nature.