“Why do I care? It’s nothing to me,” she thought, and, with a proud step, she was leaving the church, when her aunt, who was shaking hands with the Hethertons, signed for her to join her. The blonde was now coming down the aisle with Mr. Leighton, and joined the group just as Anna was introduced as “My niece, Miss Anna Ruthven.” “Oh, you are the Anna of whom I have heard so much from Ada Fuller. You were at school together in Troy,” Miss Fanny said, her searching eyes taking in every point as if she were deciding how far her new acquaintance was entitled to the praise she had heard bestowed upon her. “I knew Miss Fuller,—yes;” and Anna bowed haughtily, turning next to the blonde, Miss Lucy Harcourt, who was telling Colonel Hetherton how she had met Mr. Leighton first among the Alps, and afterwards travelled with him until their party returned to Paris, where he left them for America. “I was never so surprised in my life as I was to find him here. Why, it actually took my breath for a moment,” she went on, “and I greatly fear that, instead of listening to his sermon, I have been roaming amid that Alpine scenery, and basking again in the soft moonlight of Venice. I heard you singing, though,” she said, when Anna was presented to her, “and it helped to keep up the illusion, it was so like the music heard from a gondola that night when Mr. Leighton and myself made a voyage through the streets of Venice. Oh, it was so beautiful,” and the blue eyes turned to Mr. Leighton for confirmation of what the lips had uttered. “Which was beautiful?—Miss Ruthven’s singing or that moonlight night in Venice?” young Bellamy asked, smiling down upon the little lady, who still held Anna’s hand, and who laughingly replied: “Both, of course, though the singing is just now freshest in my memory, I liked it so much. You must have had splendid teachers,” and she turned again to Anna, whose face was suffused with blushes as she met the rector’s eyes, for to his suggestions and criticisms and teachings she owed much of that cultivation which had so pleased and surprised the stranger. “Oh, yes, I see it was _Arthur_. He tried to train me once, and told me I had a squeak in my voice. Don’t you remember?—those frightfully rainy days in Rome?” Miss Harcourt said, the _Arthur_ dropping from her lips as readily as if they had always been accustomed to speak it. She was a talkative, coquettish little lady, but there was something about her so genuine and cordial, that Anna felt the ice thawing around her heart, and even returned the pressure of the fingers which had twined themselves around her, as Lucy rattled on until the whole party left the church. It had been decided that Mrs. Meredith should call at Prospect Hill as early as Tuesday, at least; and, still holding Anna’s hand, Miss Harcourt whispered to her the pleasure it would be to see her again.