Mr. Jardine did not venture to remind Colonel Wendover that for him the cosiness of vicarage or rectory was a mere detail as compared with a worthy field for his labours. He meant to spend his life where it would be of most use to his fellow-creatures; even although the call of duty should come to him from the smokiest of manufacturing towns, or in the flat, dull fields of Lincolnshire, among pitmen and stockingers. He was not the kind of man to consider the snug rectory houses or fat glebes, but rather the kind of man to take upon himself some long-neglected parish, and ruin himself in building church and schools. Fortunately for Bessie's hopes, however, Colonel Wendover did not know this. The Curate complained to Aunt Betsy of her brother's hardness. 'Why cannot we be married at the end of this year?' he said. 'We have pledged ourselves to spend our lives together. Why should we not begin that bright new life--bright and new, at least to me--in a few months? That would be ample time for the Colonel and Mrs. Wendover to get accustomed to the idea of Bessie's marriage.' 'But a few months will not make her old enough or wise enough for a clergyman's wife,' said Miss Wendover. 'She has plenty of wisdom--the wisdom of a generous and tender heart--the best kind of wisdom. All her instincts, all her impulses, are pure, and true, and noble. What can age give her better than that? Girl as she is, my parish will be the better for her sweet influence. She will be the sunshine of my people's life as well as of mine. How will she grow wiser by living two years longer, and reading novels, and dancing at Bournemouth? I don't want her to be worldly-wise; and the better kind of wisdom comes from above. She will learn that in the quiet of her married home.' 'I see,' said Miss Wendover, smiling at him; 'you don't quite like the afternoon dances and tennis parties at Bournemouth.' 'Pray don't suppose I am jealous,' said the Curate. 'My trust in my darling's goodness and purity is the strongest part of my love. But I don't want to see the best years of her youth, her freshness, her girlish energy and enthusiasm, frittered away upon dances, and tennis, and dress, which has lately been elevated into an art. I want her help, I want her sympathy, I want her for my own--the better part of myself--going hand in hand with me in all my hopes and acts.' 'Two years sounds a long time,' said Miss Wendover, musingly, 'and I suppose, at your age and Bessie's, it is a long time; though at mine the years flow onward with such a gliding motion that it is only one's looking-glass, and the quarterly accounts, that tell one time is moving. However, I have seen a good many of these two-year engagements--' 'Yes.' 'And I have seldom seen one of them last a twelvemonth.' 'They have ended unhappily?'