All of which proceedings piqued, not to say angered, Alick Dudley; and this anger was the more unreasonable, because, if the stranger had seemed struck by Bessie’s beauty, the lad would have been out of temper still. But that any one should remain indifferent to Miss Ormson’s perfections appeared to Alick little less than a miracle. Even the rector, an old, white-haired man, was to be detected stealing furtive looks at the demure young lady who had come so late to church; and what right had this “great swell,” so Alick mentally styled the stranger, to give himself airs, and never bestow a second glance on a girl who was undeniably beautiful? “He may meet hundreds of fine ladies before he sees anything like her,” decided Master Alick; but the offending gentleman evidently did not share in this opinion. Wherever his thoughts might be, clearly they were not wandering in the direction of Bessie Ormson, who, on her side, never lifted her eyes to look at him, but kept them fixed resolutely on her little prayer-book, the rector, or the east window; a piece of propriety which, considering the girl’s proclivities for lords and grandees of all kinds, was somewhat astonishing. But then, if Bessie were a trifle coquettish, she was not bold; a maiden less likely to take the initiative in a love affair could not have been found in the length and breadth of Hertfordshire. Which fact made it, perhaps, all the more extraordinary that the stranger took no heed of so strange a mixture of modesty and vivacity and beauty. A handsome man, and yet not altogether of prepossessing appearance. Sitting opposite to, and staring at him with all his eyes, Alick felt he did not much like him. What had he come to church for? He sat there absorbed in his own thoughts, whatever they might be, hearing the sermon possibly, but unheeding it certainly. Vaguely, as in a dreamy kind of way, Alick conjectured the world, of which Bessie had been talking as they crossed the fields, might have some share in their companion’s reverie. The lad was gifted with sufficient sense to understand that a man like this was much more likely to know all the ins and outs of a wicked world than Miss Bessie Ormson; and, while the rector droned through his sermon, an impression, undefined and intangible, it is true, came into Alick’s mind, that, all through her wise conversation with him, Bessie had been arguing out some mental question with herself; forecasting what the years might bring to her, wondering with what ears she should listen to the sweet home sounds again, with what eyes she should look over the green Hertfordshire fields in the future which was uncertainly stretching forth before them both.