"Only think of your remembering so well!" "Yes, only think!" repeated Mr Mannering, with his old cheery voice returning as he rose to go. "Miss Marion, I give you warning that I shall not be able to come to the Vicarage much more if you allow my poor roses to fall into such a miserable condition. There's a Devoniensis at the porch, which it goes to my heart to see. Good by, Mrs Miles; you need not trouble your head about the robber, but if you or Marion will go and sit with her for an hour, I can't conceive any greater enjoyment to the poor old soul than to tell you the history from beginning to end." "I am glad he is gone," said Marion, feverishly, as the door shut him out. There were other little strings pulling to the same tune, and setting hearts throbbing at the Vicarage just then, while the sweet summer days blossomed and faded. David Stephens met Faith that very evening, as she came back from her father's cottage. Perhaps there could not have been a more favourable moment for him, for old Araunah, who was the most inveterate of the family against the preacher, had been inveighing loudly and angrily upon his granddaughter's infatuation, and her mother had joined in a weak, irritating sort of way, which had raised Faith's indignation on behalf of her lover. "A poor crooked feller like that there David! It do vex me so to think o't, Faith, that I can't give my mind to my meat, an' if I doan't kep abowt an' do my niffles, I doan't know watt iver'll come to the house nor fayther. If he wor a fine, hearty young man, now, there'd be somethin' to say for 'ee." "Handsome is as handsome does," said Faith, flushing. She was not very much in love with David, but this disparagement created a natural desire to set him a little higher than she might otherwise have done. "There was crowds to hear him last Sunday, and the people so taken up with him, they're ready to cut off their hands if he told them to." "Likely enough," said old Araunah, with vast acorn. "You'll find more fules than wise, my gal, wheriver you goes. For my peart, I doan't see as this hyur ground grows much beside." Faith had come away in the very thick of the battle, and as she suddenly turned a corner upon David, the feeling of championship excited on his behalf had not had time to cool. She showed him more plainly than usual that she was glad to see him, and the perception of this brought an immediate change in his pale face. "You're looking tired, David," she said tenderly. "You've been tramping about too much, as you're always doing. Why can't you take a little rest? Nobody works so hard as you, I do believe; there's father at it all day, but when he comes home, there he sits comfortable, and you're only off to something else."