They had, by this time, reached the rectory, and Clair, exhausted from unusual exercise, threw himself into an arm-chair, and took up a book. CHAPTER II. From dream to dream, with her to rove, Like faery nurse, with hermit child, Teach her to think, to pray, to love, Make grief less bitter, joy less wild. These were thy tasks,--. CHURCH POETRY. About a quarter of a mile from the rectory, and close to the Church, was the pretty little residence which had attracted Clair's attention in his morning walk. It was an old fashioned little house, with gable front, and latticed windows, with ivy climbing over the walls, and jasmine and honeysuckle creeping in rich luxuriance over the old porch. In front, the grass-plot sloped down, with a wide gravel walk running round it, to the gate, which shut it in from the high road. At the back lay a spacious vegetable garden, irregularly laid out, and interrupted here and there by a rose-bush, or bed of beautiful carnations, as it suited the old gardener's taste--for he had lived in the family so many years, that no one dared dispute his will in the garden--it was conducted on his most approved style of good gardening; and old John would have defended that style against all the world. To have discharged him from her service would have been one of the last things his mistress would have thought of; therefore, the only alternative was to let him have his own way in every thing. One part of his system was to put every thing in the place best suited to its growth, without much regard to order, and the garden often presented a strange medley in consequence; the hottest corners were shared by early lettuces, and rich double stocks, and radish beds, and so on, throughout the garden; but there was something not unpleasing in the mixture, though it looked a little singular, and the general neatness was not to be found fault with--and the turf walks cutting the garden in many directions, were always smoothly cut and rolled.