‘Anne, Charley wants to speak to you,’ Rose said, as soon as she had an opportunity, in the hearing of everybody; and Anne turned and nodded with friendly assent over the chairs of the old ladies. But she did not make any haste to ask what he wanted. She took it with great ease, as not calling for any special attention. There would be abundant opportunities of hearing what Charley had to say. On the way home she could ask him what he wanted; or while they were waiting for the carriage; or even to-morrow, when he was sure to come to talk over the party, would no doubt be time enough. It would be something about the schools, or some girl or boy who wanted a place, or some old woman who was ill. ‘Anne, Charley says he _must_ speak to you,’ said Rose again. But it was not till after she had received a third message that Anne really gave any attention to the call. ‘Cannot he tell you what he wants?--I will come as soon as I can,’ she said. Perhaps the curate was not so much distressed as he thought he was by her inattention. He watched her from a distance with his hands in his pockets. When he was accosted by other clergymen and country friends who were wandering about he replied to them, and even carried on little conversations, with his eyes upon her. Something grim and humorous, a kind of tender spitefulness, was in the look with which he regarded her. If she only knew! But it was her own fault if she did not know, not his. It gave him a kind of pleasure to see how she lingered, to perceive that her mind was fully occupied, and that she never divined the nature of his business with her. So far as his own action went he had done his duty, but he could not help a half chuckle, quickly suppressed, when he imagined within himself how Douglas would look if he saw how impossible it was to gain Anne’s attention. Did that mean, he asked in spite of himself, that after all she was not so much interested? Charley had felt sure that at the first word Anne would divine. ‘_I_ should divine if a note of _hers_ was on its way to me,’ he said to himself--and it pleased him that she never guessed that a letter from Cosmo was lying safe in the recesses of his pocket. When she came hastily towards him at last, a little breathless and hurried, and with only a moment to spare, there was no consciousness in Anne’s face. ‘What is it?’ she said--before the Woodheads! She would have said it before anybody, so entirely unsuspicious was she. ‘I must go back to the old lady,’ she added, with a little blush and smile, pleased in spite of herself by the distinction; ‘but, Rose told me you wanted me. Tell me what it is.’