“No, I will find them myself,” Mr. Leighton rejoined. Then, as he thought how impossible it would be to give the letter to Anna in the presence of her aunt, he slipped it into the book, which he bade Esther take to Miss Ruthven’s room. Knowing how honest and faithful Esther was, the rector felt that he could trust her without a fear for the safety of his letter, and went to the Glen, where the tell-tale blushes which burned on Anna’s cheek at sight of him more than compensated for the coolness with which Mrs. Meredith greeted him. She, too, had detected Anna’s embarrassment, and when the stranger was presented to her as “Mr. Leighton, our clergyman,” the secret was out. “Why is it that since the beginning of time girls have run wild after young ministers?” was her mental comment, as she bowed to Mr. Leighton, and then quietly inspected his _personnel_. There was nothing about Arthur Leighton’s appearance with which she could find fault. He was even finer-looking than Thornton Hastings, her _beau ideal_ of a man, and as he stood a moment by Anna’s side, looking down upon her, the woman of the world acknowledged to herself that they were a well-assorted pair, and as across the chasm of twenty years there came to her an episode in her life, when, on just such a day as this, she had answered “no” to one as young and worthy as Arthur Leighton, while all the time the heart was clinging to him, she softened for a moment, and by the memory of the weary years passed with the rich old man whose name she bore, she was tempted to leave alone the couple standing there before her, and looking into each other’s eyes with a look which she could not mistake. But when she remembered that Arthur was only a poor clergyman, and thought of that house on Madison Square which Thornton Hastings owned, the softened mood was changed, and Arthur Leighton’s chance with her was gone. Awhile they talked together in the Glen, and then walked back to the farm-house, where the rector bade them good-evening, after casually saying to Anna: “I brought the book you spoke of when I was here last. You will find it in your room, where I asked Esther to take it.” That Mr. Leighton should bring her niece a book did not seem strange at all, but that he should be so very thoughtful as to tell Esther to take it to her room struck Mrs. Meredith as rather odd, and as the practised war-horse scents the battle from afar, so she at once suspected something wrong, and felt a curiosity to know what the book could be. It was lying on Anna’s table as she reached the door on her way to her own room, and pausing for a moment, she entered the chamber, took it in her hands, read the title page, and then opened it where the letter lay.