"Alas! alas! Mr. Temple, if you do not flatter, you make me deeply ashamed, and I fear for the first time," she added with a degree of playful reproach, "I must set you down as an unfaithful pastor--speaking false-praise, when you should be sending me away with serious exhortation and advice as to my future course of life." The colour mounted in sudden force to Mr. Temple's brow. "Then, God forgive me my unfaithfulness if so it be!" he murmured with strong emotion, "for I do indeed confess, that never did I feel less competent to act the part of Mentor, than I do now, standing before you this evening, only trembling to be awakened from a dream I fear as futile--though not less sweet--as any day-dream which may have coloured the pure light of your existence, Miss Seaham." She looked up. Startled by the thrilling earnestness of the speaker's voice, and still more struck by the expression of the countenance bent down upon her, Mary Seaham withdrew her gaze in some confusion the crimson blood suffusing her temples, and with averted countenance, she said, with some hurried embarrassment, whilst striving to recover from the sort of alarm her feelings had undergone, yet scarcely conscious of what she uttered. "I am not sorry then to find that _you_ also can indulge in the weakness of a day-dream!" But the awkward pause then followed--for Mr. Temple was silent after she made this remark and beginning to fear lest she might have offended him by its apparent lightness, she turned a timid glance towards her companion. He was stooping down caressing the little dog by her side, not looking offended, but grave and abstracted. She was reassured, and regarding him as thus he continued, seemingly absorbed in his own particular thoughts--his fine, strikingly handsome and intellectual countenance on which seemed to have been originally impressed the stamp of talent of a higher order, and fitted for a wider field of action than the little theatre in which they at present found employment--the feelings to which this observation gave rise, moved her to express herself in accents not devoid of gentle, admiring interest, when she said: "Mr. Temple, do not think me impertinent, but I sometimes wonder that you should linger so long in this remote, retired spot, where all the good that it is in your power to effect is necessarily of so limited and contracted a nature. Indeed," with a blush and a smile at her own temerity, "I shall feel almost a melancholy regret in thinking of you, when I am away, hiding your talents, wasting your powers amongst the mountain heather, or on the humble inhabitants of this obscure, though lovely valley." "'What dost thou here, frail wanderer from thy task? Why hast thou left those few sheep in the wild?'" quoted Mr. Temple, a look of pleasure nevertheless lighting up the face which he again raised towards her. "But a self-imposed task may not yours at present be?" persisted Miss Seaham.