It was a lovely morning, and the pretty little church was very full. But it seemed that Rona could not fix her mind upon what she was doing. She sat all the time like one in a dream, furtively glancing behind her, over her shoulder, as though she expected to see something alarming. During the sermon it was painful to watch her difficulty in remaining quiet. She was usually full of repose, but to-day she changed her position, fidgeted, looked up, looked down, looked around; until the irritation of Miss Rawson's nerves grew almost unbearable. At last the service was over. They rose from their places, and moved slowly down the central space, between the chairs. Three parts of the way down, an elderly man, coarse and stout, but dressed like a gentleman, stood hat in hand, his eyes fixed upon them both, something that was not quite a smile, nor quite a sneer, lurking in his eyes and unpleasant mouth. As they passed him, he spoke quietly, but quite audibly. "Well, Veronica," he said, smoothly, "have you nothing to say to your Uncle Rankin?" In that awful moment Miss Rawson was the more agitated of the two. It seemed that, now the blow had fallen, the strange tension and restlessness of the girl had passed away, and her spirit leaped up to wrestle with this realization of her vague forebodings. She gravely shook hands with her uncle, and said, in an undertone, "Let us wait to talk until we are outside." They moved with the thinning stream of people to the porch, and out into the oppressive heat of a gray day that threatened thunder. There Rona turned to Miss Rawson, and said, still very quietly, "This is my mother's uncle, Rankin Leigh." Aunt Bee had had a moment in which to collect herself. She bowed to the disagreeable looking man who stood truculently there in the road, his hat slightly pushed back upon his head, his eyes full of an odious triumph, as thinking he had the whip hand of the situation. "Pleased to meet any friend of my niece's, ma'am," said he, familiarly. "And who may you be, if I may take the liberty to inquire?" "My name is Rawson," said Aunt Bee, with a valiant attempt not to display the distaste she felt. "Are you--are you--staying near here?" The man grinned unpleasantly. "Oh, yes, quite near," he said--"most convenient indeed." "It is convenient," said Miss Rawson, whose mind, working with velocity under the stress of the moment, had determined that, as the man was there, he must be more or less propitiated and made use of. How thankful she felt that Denzil had so lately heard all of the affair that Rona and the Mother Superior could tell them! "I have been wishing to meet you, as your niece begins to feel that it is time she knew her own history."