Even in person this son of the people could hold his own against the descendants of the old county families. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man; and Nelly, whose stature was above middle height, secretly took a pleasure in feeling that she must look up to him. They were seen walking side by side along the Huntsdean lanes, and folks began to say that they were a fine couple. Those calm autumn days were very sweet days to Nelly Channell. The summer lingered long; no wild winds suddenly stripped the trees, and so the woods kept their leafiness, and stood, in all their gorgeous apparel, under the pale blue skies. Nelly thought it must be the peace of this slow decay and tranquil sunshine that made her life so happy at this time. She did not own to herself that every bit of the old scenery had become dearer because Morgan Foster was learning to love it too. Her father and mother discovered the secret long before she had found it out; and they smiled over it together, not ill-pleased. She had more than one offer just at this period. The neighbouring country houses were full of men who had come to Huntsdean for the shooting. They admired Nelly riding by her father's side, and looking vigorous and blooming in her habit and hat. They met her now and then at a dinner-party, and straightway fell in love with her chestnut hair and brown eyes, and were not unmindful of the handsome dowry that would go with these charms. She was wont to say, long afterwards, that her unconscious attachment to another was a safeguard of God's providing. Many a woman speaks the fatal Yes, because her heart furnishes her with no reason for saying No. Robert Channell encouraged the curate to come often to his house; but no one hinted that he thought of him as a possible son-in-law. It was too absurd to suppose that he would give his Nelly to a man who had only a hundred-and-fifty a year, and was encumbered with an old father and mother, living in obscurity. Some of the disappointed suitors remarked that Channell was a fool to have the parson hanging about the place;--there was no counting on the whims of a spoiled beauty, who might take it into her head to fling herself away on a curate. But this notion was not generally entertained, and the intimacy increased without exciting much notice. Christmas had come and gone. It was the last day of the old year; Nelly, sitting alone by the drawing-room fire, was seriously taking herself to task, and asking her own heart why the world was so very desolate that day? True, the ground was covered with snow; but the afternoon sky was bright with winter sunshine. The brown woodlands took rich tinges from the golden rays that slanted over them, and scarlet berries glistened against the garden wall. Nelly had wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, and had laid the blame of her low spirits on a cold.