THE PASTOR'S WIFE _By the Author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden"_ _Illustrated by Arthur Litle_ GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1914 [Illustration: "Tell me, Little One," he said when she rejoined him, "will you marry me?"] BY THE SAME AUTHOR ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN ADVENTURES OF ELIZABETH IN RÜGEN FRÄULEIN SCHMIDT AND MR. ANSTRUTHER PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT THE SOLITARY SUMMER THE CARAVANERS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "Tell me, Little One," he said when she rejoined him, "will you marry me?" _Frontispiece_ "Then why," she asked, with the courage of curiosity, "are you a pastor?" "Will you not, Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, calling her for the first time by her name, "cut the cake?" "But--father, I've been doing it too" He could no longer walk around his own garden without meeting an interlaced couple "You are married to her?" asked the elder Frau Dremmel, turning her pebble eyes slowly from one to the other Especially her gaze lingered on her feet. Becoming aware of this, Ingeborg tried to hide them "But these are very wonderful," she said, taking up the sketches. "I wish I were really like that." PART I CHAPTER I On that April afternoon all the wallflowers of the world seemed to her released body to have been piled up at the top of Regent Street so that she should walk in fragrance. She was in this exalted mood, the little mouse-coloured young lady slipping along southwards from Harley Street, because she had just had a tooth out. After weeks of miserable indifference she was quivering with responsiveness again, feeling the relish of life, the tang of it, the jollity of all this bustle and hurrying past of busy people. And the beauty of it, the _beauty_ of it, she thought, fighting a tendency to loiter in the middle of the traffic to have a good look--the beauty of the sky across the roofs of the houses, the delicacy of the mistiness that hung down there over the curve of the street, the loveliness of the lights beginning to shine in the shop windows. Surely the colour of London was an exquisite thing. It was like a pearl that late afternoon, something very gentle and pale, with faint blue shadows. And as for its smell, she doubted, indeed, whether heaven itself could smell better, certainly not so interesting. "And anyhow," she said to herself, lifting her head a moment in appreciation, "it can't possibly smell more _alive_."