"I fear I have monopolised Miss Armstrong's attention too much on another subject," he replied, smiling also, "but as I am about to accept your kind invitation to remain till to-morrow, I shall hope to become better acquainted with this pleasant spot before I leave." When Mary seated herself at the tea-table, cousin Sarah required no words to tell her what her father's message had been. It was not so much the brilliant colour in the young girl's cheeks, or the brightness of her eyes which attracted notice, as the expression of calm happiness which had replaced a sad, and at times a constrained look in her face, showing to those interested in her how firm a control she had exerted over herself. All this had disappeared, and yet the memory of the past increased Mary's happiness. She had submitted to her father's wishes, and subdued her own will to his. Neither by word or thought had she disobeyed him, except in refusing to marry those whom she could neither respect nor love. And now unasked he had given his consent from, as she fully believed, his own unbiassed opinion of Henry Halford's real character and real worth. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE NEW RECTOR OF BRIARSLEIGH. The summer of the year which had brought such happiness to Mary Armstrong was fading into autumn. At the door of the parish church at Kilburn appeared a goodly array of carriages, the coachmen wearing white favours indicating a wedding, and attracting a crowd of lookers-on. A stranger passed, and observing the police endeavouring to force a passage though the crowd for the bride and bridegroom, whose carriage stood at the gates, also remained as a spectator, and inquired of those around him the name of the bridegroom. "It's our curate, sir," said a respectable woman who stood near; "leastways he was our curate, but he's got a church of his own now down in Hampshire; it's been given him by a great lord. And the lady, sir, she's the daughter of a rich gentleman as lives here at Kilburn, and he's given her I can't tell how many thousand pounds for her fortune, and here they come, sir," she added, as the bells rang out a merry peal, and the congregation, hastening from the church, increased the crowd outside. In a few minutes the bride appeared leaning on her husband's arm, the folds of her white satin dress swaying gracefully as she moved, and the bright hair glinting beneath the lace veil and orange blossoms, while the brilliant colour on her cheeks made more than one exclaim, "Doesn't she look beautiful!" Henry Halford's tall, manly figure, dignified carriage, dark hair, and full whiskers formed a pleasing contrast to his fair bride, heightened not a little by his pale face. In fact the young clergyman could not yet realise his happiness and good fortune, but felt as if in a dream from which he must shortly awaken to the realities of life.