At meal-times, when he ate but little, it seemed to be that face that was opposite to him, instead of the thin, handsome features of his sister Rebecca; and if he turned his gaze to the right there was the face again instead of the pale, refined, high-bred Beatrice. He went to bed, and lay turning from side to side, with that countenance photographed upon his brain, and when at last toward morning he fell asleep, it was to dream always of that pensive countenance. The Reverend Henry Lambent grew alarmed. He could not understand it. He had never given much thought to such a matter as marriage on his own account. He knew that people were married, because he had joined them together scores of times, and he knew that generally people were well-dressed, looked very weak and foolish, and that the bride shed tears and wrote her name worse than ever she had written it before. But that had nothing to do with him. He stood on a cold, stony pedestal, which raised him high above such human weaknesses--weaknesses that belonged to his people, not to him. At last he told himself that it was his duty to resist temptation, and that by resistance it would be overcome. He realised that his ailment was really mental, and after severe examination determined to quell it by bold endeavour, for the more he fled from the cause the worse he seemed to be. It was absurd! It was ridiculous! It was a kind of madness, he told himself; and again he walked over to the schools, determined to be firm and severe. Then he told himself this feeling of enchantment would pass away, for he should see Hazel Thorne as she really was, and not through the _couleur de rose_ glasses of his imagination. He started then, and walked stiffly and severely down to the schools, his chin in the air and a condescending bow ready for any one who would touch his hat; but instead of going, as he had intended, straight to the girls, he turned in and surprised Mr Chute reading a novel at his desk while the boys were going on not quite in accordance with a clerical idea of discipline. The result was a severe snubbing to Mr Chute, and the vicar stalked across the floor to go into the girls' school; but just then he heard a sweetly modulated voice singing the first bars of a simple school ballad, and he stopped to listen. He had heard the song hundreds of times, but it had never sounded like that before, and he stood as if riveted to the spot as the sweet, dear voice gained strength, and he knew now that just at the back of Mr Chute's desk one of the shutters had been left slightly open, so that if he pleased that gentleman could peer into the girls' school. The vicar did not know how it was, but an angry pang shot through him, and a longing came over him to send Mr Chute far away and take his place, teaching the boys, and--keeping that shutter slightly down-- listening always to the singing of that sweet, simple lay.