never-ceasing whisper of his fate, he inclined to hope that he eventually might obtain it. This hope, not arrived at until after many days' anxious self-communing, brought with it a different train of thought--a better train of mind. He was no longer inclined to be solitary now; he took a pleasure in going among his parishioners; in chatting with the old dames and young lasses; in listening to the farmers, and discussing future plans with them. That was to be the scene of his future labours; that was to be the place where his life with Alice would be passed. He pictured her to himself dispensing her charities, aiding him in his work, proving herself, as she was certain to do, kind, patient, active, exactly fitted for a parson's wife. Far removed from London and its temptations, out of the reach of any who might chance to know her previous history, worshipped and protected by him; the benefactress of the poor and sick; the kindly friend of all; her life at Lullington would be as it ought to have been from the first. And his life? It was almost too much happiness to speculate upon it. With the new hope came renewed health, fresh brightness, unaccustomed geniality. His village friends had never before seen their Vicar so radiantly happy; and farmer Barford bade his son Bill remark that all the direful effects of the visit to London had passed away, and that the Lullington air and the return to his congregation had made their parson a man again. This happy frame of mind was, however, not destined to last long. One bright winter's morning, when Martin Gurwood was walking briskly up and down the long gravel path leading to the garden-gate, now and then diverging for a moment to speak to the old gardener, who was pottering away in the conservatory, and who had as yet scarcely got over his grief for the damage done to his favourite shrubs by Mr. Dill's mischievous children, the heavily-laden village postman saluted the Vicar, and handed him two letters and his weekly copy of the _Guardian_. There was a time when Martin, in his eagerness to plunge into his journal, would have laid the letters aside for a more favourable opportunity, but now the postman had become a person of the greatest interest to him. On several occasions he had received a letter from Alice--quietly, simply, and naturally written--describing the domestic events of her daily life, and always speaking gratefully of his kindness towards her. This morning, however, there was nothing from Alice; one of the letters was written in his mother's narrow-cramped characters; the other in the bold flowing hand of Humphrey Statham.