The sage shouldered his tools and departed. But he left a good hint behind him. Alfred hovered about the back-door the next day till he caught Mrs. Maxley; she supplied the house with eggs and vegetables. “Could she tell him whether his friend Edward Dodd was likely to come home soon?” She thought not; he was gone away to study. “He haven't much head-piece, you know, not like what Miss Julia have. Mrs. and Miss are to be home to-day; they wrote to cook this morning. I shall be there to-morrow, sartain, and I'll ask in the kitchen when Master Edward is a-coming back.” She prattled on. The ladies of Albion Villa were good kind ladies; the very maid-servants loved them; Miss was more for religion than her mother, and went to St. Anne's Church Thursday evenings, and Sundays morning and evening; and visited some poor women in the parish with food and clothes; Mrs. Dodd could not sleep a wink when the wind blew hard at night; but never complained, only came down pale to breakfast. Miss Julia's ailment was nothing to speak of, but they were in care along of being so wrapped up in her, and no wonder, for if ever there was a duck----! Acting on this intelligence, Alfred went early the next Sunday to St. Anne's Church, and sat down in the side gallery at its east end. While the congregation flowed quietly in, the organist played the _Agnus Dei_ of Mozart. Those pious tender tones stole over his hot young heart, and whispered, “Peace, be still!” He sighed wearily, and it passed through his mind that it might have been better for him, and especially for his studies, if he had never seen her. Suddenly the aisle seemed to lighten up; she was gliding along it, beautiful as May, and modesty itself in dress and carriage. She went into a pew and kneeled a minute, then seated herself and looked out the lessons for the day. Alfred gazed at her face: devoured it. But her eyes never roved. She seemed to have put off feminine curiosity, and the world, at the church door. Indeed he wished she was not quite so heavenly discreet; her lashes were delicious, but he longed to see her eyes once more; to catch a glance from them, and, by it, decipher his fate. But no; she was there to worship, and did not discern her earthly lover, whose longing looks were glued to her, and his body rose and sank with the true worshippers, but with no more spirituality than a piston or a Jack-in-the-box. In the last hymn before the sermon, a well-meaning worshipper in the gallery delivered a leading note, a high one, with great zeal, but small precision, being about a semitone flat; at this outrage on her too-sensitive ear, Julia Dodd turned her head swiftly to discover the offender, and failed; but her two sapphire eyes met Alfred's point-blank. She was crimson in a moment, and lowered them on her book again, as if to look that way was to sin. It was but a flash: but sometimes a flash fires a mine.