“Umph! Don’t you be too sure of that!” retorted the barrister sharply. “He is a—well, he has been very good to me, and he is my uncle, and I am not going to say anything against him. But I am not quite sure that I should like him for my church warden. _Your_ church warden! Why, it is like a fairy tale, old fellow!” And so it seemed to Lindo when, an hour later, the small boy, with the same portentous gravity of face, let him out and bade him good-day. As the young parson started eastward, along Fleet Street first, he looked at the moving things round him with new eyes, from a new standpoint, with a new curiosity. The passers-by were the same, but he was changed. He had lunched, and perhaps the material view of his position was uppermost, for those in the crowd who specially observed the tall young clergyman noticed in his bearing an air of calm importance and a strong sense of personal dignity, which led him to shun collisions, and even to avoid jostling his fellows, with peculiar care. The truth was that he had all the while before his eyes, as he walked, an announcement which was destined to appear in the “Guardian” of the following week: “The Rev. Reginald Lindo, M.A., St. Barnabas’ Mission, London, to be Rector of Claversham. Patron, the Earl of Dynmore.” CHAPTER III. AN AWKWARD MEETING. A fortnight after this paragraph in the “Guardian” had filled Claversham with astonishment and Mr. Clode with a modest thankfulness that he was spared the burden of office, a little dark man—Jack Smith, in fact—drove briskly into Paddington Station, and, disregarding the offers of the porters, who stand waiting on the hither side of the journey like Charon by the Styx, and see at a glance who has the obolus, sprang from the hansom without assistance, and bustled on to the platform. Here he looked up and down as if he expected to meet some one, and then, glancing at the clock, found that he had a quarter of an hour to spare. He made at once for the bookstall, and, with a lavishness which would have surprised some of his friends, bought “Punch,” a little volume by Howells, the “Standard,” and finally, though he blushed as he asked for it, the “Queen.” He had just gathered his purchases together and was paying for them, when a high-pitched voice at his elbow made him start. “Why, Jack! what in the world are you buying all those papers for?” The speaker was a girl about thirteen years old, who in the hubbub had stolen unnoticed to his side. “Hullo, Daintry,” he answered. “Why did you not say that you were here before? I have been looking for you. Where is Kate? Oh, yes, I see her,” as a young lady turning over books at the farther end of the stall acknowledged his presence by a laughing nod. “You are here in good time,” he went on, while the younger girl affectionately slipped her arm through his. “Yes,” she said. “Your mother started us early. And so you have come to see us off, after all, Jack?” “Just so,” he answered drily. “Let us go to Kate.”