The thoughts of youth are generally as unformed as the features of childhood; and thus, though Alick was conscious of some curious enigma perplexing him, he yet would have been surprised had any one placed the puzzle he was considering before his mental vision, perfect in form and clothed with words. At length it was all over—the sermon, the service, the reverie—and, with a sense of relief, the lad opened the pew door, and stood in the aisle while his companion passed out. In order to allow her to take precedence of him, the stranger had stepped a little back into the pew, and this slight courtesy Bessie acknowledged by the merest inclination of her pretty head. Then Alick saw the gentleman look at her, for an instant only—next moment his dark eyes were roaming over the church, scanning the monuments, glancing up at the organ-loft. When they were half way down the aisle, Alick turned to see what the stranger was doing, and found him, not following Bessie with his eyes, but still scrutinising the church as though he were a member of the Archæological Society. There he stood in the pew just as they had left him, indolently surveying roof and walls, tombs and windows. As they passed through the porch, Alick looked back once more, but the object of his curiosity had not moved. “Waiting for the rector, perhaps,” thought the lad; and he hurried after Bessie, who by this time was half way across the graveyard. “What a dear old church!” she said, as they reached the gate. “I like it much better than Fifield.” “Excuse me, but I believe this is your prayer-book,” said a voice close beside her at this juncture, and the interruption was so sudden that both Alick and his companion started to find the stranger close beside them. “Thank you, I am sorry to have given you so much trouble; yes, it is mine,” Bessie stammered, her face covered with blushes as she received the book, which she put in her pocket; while the stranger raised his hat and turned back across the churchyard in the direction of the Rectory. “Now, was not that stupid of me?” asked Bessie. In his heart, perhaps Alick thought it was, but he did not express this opinion, he only offered to carry the book for her. “No, thank you, it is so small, I always keep it in my pocket,” she answered. “If there be one thing more than another I dislike, it is to see people parading church-services and Bibles about on a Sunday as though they want to let all the world know they have been praying;” and thus Bessie rattled on while they retraced their way across the fields, and over the Kemm, and past the woods, and so to Berrie Down, which place they reached about the time when Mrs. Ormson, awaking from her afternoon siesta like a giant refreshed, proposed that society generally should take a turn on the lawn. To this proposal society, nothing loth, agreed; and thus it chanced that Bessie and Alick were descried entering the croft and rounding the Hollow, and ascending the hill leading to the house.