It required a great deal of talking, however, before Mr. Ufford could decide on any plan. He came to the Vicar with only a great mind to act, and he left him, having arrived no nearer to forming a definite intention, or seeming to Hilary to have any serious idea of acting as he talked! She felt a little annoyed at his indecision; it would form an indisputable excuse for many visits, and much dawdling, and a reason for putting off some useful plans regarding village improvements, and deferring some alterations and amendments in the church, which had been projected, and for which Lord Dunsmore himself had contributed funds. She longed to put a little energy or decision into his mind and actions; she wished she could make him resolve either to go or stay, or that at any rate she could enlighten his understanding sufficiently to make him comprehend his own desires, and not pass the time for action in lingering between duty and her sister Gwyneth. The sort of expectations to which his conduct gave rise in the village was more than once significantly hinted to Mrs. Hepburn, when receiving the congratulations and good wishes of the many attached parishioners who had known her from a child. The fear perpetually expressed that her marriage would remove her from the neighborhood, as Miss Sybil’s had done, was pretty generally followed by a more or less broadly-worded hint that Miss Gwyneth’s choice would be a better one for them, and that they hoped one of their young ladies at least would never leave them; for young as Miss Gwyneth was, she was quite womanly in her way and look, and was as well fitted to be mistress at the Vicarage as young Mrs. Hepburn herself. And a remark which closed one of these commentaries the first time they met her taught her what accurate and penetrating notice those apparently indifferent spectators took of their superior’s ways and proceedings. “But bless you, miss,” said one old woman, “it would have been far better for us had you taken the young ’Squire at ‘the Ferns,’ instead of this captain from foreign parts. And they do say he will be fit to hang himself, whensoever he comes to hear of your being married to another.” Hilary tried to look unconcerned, and to speak on some other subject. News travels fast, and it soon became known to the village gossips that Mr. Huyton did not intend to commit suicide on the occasion of Hilary’s marriage. But the first intelligence which reached the Vicarage of his plans came directly from himself, in a letter to Mr. Duncan, which the writer knew well must be read by Hilary herself. “DEAR MR. DUNCAN,