Miss Piggin, twenty-nine years of age, with spectacles, and ardent in romance, was quite thrilled by the first glimpse, as she turned to the East in the recital of the Creed, of the handsome young master. His profile would have enhanced the wrapper of those shilling reprints to which, for want of romance, she was addicted. Nor was she alone in her sudden interest. Several young ladies sitting behind John found great fascination in the clean curve from the nape of the neck up to the wavy brown head. Other younger ladies, favourably placed in the side pews, could not have been more fascinated had Apollo himself renounced his pagan origin and come to church. The proud mouth, the dark eyes, the fine brow surmounted by a wavy mass of chestnut hair, the whole poised on an athlete's shoulders, were attractions against which the sermon competed in vain. The doctor's daughter, for three years determined to be a missionary's wife, found her gaze wandering from the altar to the school pew. One little boy with a freckled face and a genius for mischief, ceased making chewed pellets from a hymn sheet when he noticed the rapt attention directed towards the pew in which he sat. He nudged the boy at his side, and both, suddenly conscious of the suppressed excitement that flowed over them, sniggered and brought a reproof from their new master. Something in the freckled boy's mute mirth as he looked at him, caused John to turn round, when he met the troubled gaze of a dozen pairs of amorous eyes. He quickly turned again and felt the blood mounting to his neck and face. The little boys sniggered again. John made a mental note not to the little boys' advantage. Miss Piggin also made one--to call when her father paid his formal visit; and not to be outwitted, the doctor's daughter decided she would motor in with her father on Monday morning, when he paid his usual visit to examine all the boys at the beginning of term. Hitherto missionaries had absorbed her hero-worship, but then, assistant masters, as a class, had not seemed attractive. The former master drank, to the scandal of the village, which met him in the bar of the "Red Cow" where he grossly libelled all those, and their wives, who kept preparatory schools. His predecessor had a squint, the one before was lame, and the one before him was an old man of sixty, who had suddenly and most inconveniently died of bronchitis in term time. Sixty pounds a year and free board somewhat limited the available supply of assistant masters. Messrs. Sloggart and Slingsby, the scholastic agents, had told the Rev. Mr. Tobin that they were afraid he would have to add another ten pounds.