He lingered long enough to give them a personal description of the new-comer—speaking always of him in words of praise—and then he took his leave. As his hand met Laura’s, his face flushed ever so slightly and his dark eyes glowed; and the girl, as she turned away, smiled furtively, knowing well, though he had never spoken, that she was the cause of this. So she was, but in part only. At that moment the curate saw something besides Laura—he saw across a narrow strait of trouble the fairer land of preferment, his footing on which once gained he might pretend to her and to many other pleasant things at present beyond his reach. CHAPTER VI. THE BONAMYS AT HOME. Lindo made his first exploration of the neighborhood, not on the day after his arrival, which was taken up with his induction by the archdeacon and with other matters, but on the day after that. He chose to avoid the streets, in which he felt somewhat shy, so polite were the attentions and so curious the glances of his parishioners; and he selected instead a lane which, starting from the churchyard, seemed to plunge at once into the country. It was a pleasant lane. It lay deep sunk in a cutting through the sandstone rock—a cutting first formed, perhaps, when the great stones for the building of the church were dragged up that way. He paused halfway down the slope to look about him curiously, and was still standing when some one came round the corner before him. It was Kate Bonamy. He saw the girl’s cheek—she was alone—flush ever so slightly as their eyes met; and he noticed, too, that to all appearance she would have passed him with a bow had he not placed himself in her way. “Come,” he said, laughing frankly as he held out his hand, “you must not cut me, Miss Bonamy! Let me tell you, you have quite the aspect of an old friend, for until now I have not seen one face since I came here that was not absolutely new to me.” “It must feel strange, no doubt,” she murmured. “It is. _I_ feel strange!” he replied. “I want you to tell me where this road goes to, if you please. I am so strange, I do not even know that.” “Kingsford Carbonel,” she answered briefly. “Ah! The archdeacon lives there, does he not?” “Yes.” “And the distance, please, is——?” “Three miles.” “Thank you,” he said. “Really you are as concise as a mile-stone, Miss Bonamy. And now let me remind you,” he continued—there was an air of “I am going on this moment” about her, which provoked him to detain her the longer—“that you have not yet asked me what I think of Claversham.” “I would rather ask you in a month’s time,” Kate answered quietly, holding out her hand to take leave. “Though it is already reported in the town that you will only stay a year, Mr. Lindo.” “I shall only stay a year!” the rector repeated in astonishment. “Certainly,” she answered, smiling, and relapsing for a moment into the pleasant frankness of that day at Oxford—“only a year; your days are already numbered.”