'Dr. Heriot will be angry with Rex if he sees you fretting.' 'I am not fretting; I never fret,' she returned, indignantly; 'as though that foolish boy deserved it. I am happier than I can tell you. Oh, Richard, is he not good?' And there was no mistaking the sweet earnestness with which she spoke of her future husband. 'Ah, that he is.' 'How grave you look, Richard! Are you really glad--really and truly, I mean?' 'Why, Polly, what a little Jesuit you are, diving into people's secret thoughts in this way.' And there was a shadow of embarrassment in Richard's cordial manner. 'Of course I am glad that you should be happy, dear, and not less so that Dr. John's solitary days are over.' 'Yes, but you don't think me worthy of him,' she returned, plaintively, and yet shrewdly. 'I don't think you really grown up, you mean; you wear long dresses, you are quite a fashionable young lady now, but to me you always seem little Polly.' 'Rude boy,' she returned, with a charming pout, 'one would think you had gray hairs, to listen to you. I can't be so very young or so very silly, or he would not have chosen me, you know.' 'I suppose you have bewitched him,' returned Richard, smiling; but Polly refused to hear any more and ran away laughing. Richard's face clouded over his thoughts when he was left alone. Whatever they were he kept them locked in his own breast; during the few days he remained at home, he was observant of all that passed under his eyes, and there was a deferential tenderness in his manner to Mildred that somewhat surprised her; but neither to her nor to any other person did he hint that he was disappointed by Dr. Heriot's choice. During the first day there had been no mention of Kirkleatham or Ethel Trelawny, but on the second day Richard had himself broken the ice by suggesting that Mildred should contrive some errand that should take her thither, and that in the course of her visit she should mention his arrival at the vicarage. 'I must think of her, Aunt Milly; we are neither of us ready to undergo the awkwardness of a first meeting. Perhaps in a few months things may go on much as usual. I always meant to write to her before my ordination. Tell her that I shall only be here for a few days--that Polly wants me to wait over her birthday, but that I have no intention of intruding on her.' 'Are you so sure she will regard it as an intrusion?' asked Mildred, quietly. 'There is no need to debate the question,' was the somewhat hasty reply. 'I must not deviate from the rule I have laid down for myself, to see as little as possible of her until after my ordination.' 'And that will be at Whitsuntide?' 'Yes,' he returned, with an involuntary sigh; 'so, Aunt Milly, you will promise to go after dinner?'