"You be Red Ridinghood and I the wolf," suggested Lionel. "No. Do be serious, Lionel! I want you to tell me about this poor man you saw." "Garth? Ah, he'll never see another Christmas. Consumption is wasting him to a shadow. In another three or four months----" Lionel broke off with a sigh, "Poor man!" "Can't anything be done?" asked Joan, sympathetically. "Everything possible is being done, Joan. The Duke is looking after Garth in every way--you know how kind he is. He even sent Demetrius to cure him, and if Demetrius can't, no one else can." "But if he was taken to a warmer climate----" "The end would only be retarded for a few months," interrupted the curate. "Demetrius says there is no hope. And I don't think the poor fellow is sorry to go, Joan. He has no relatives, and few friends. I fancy he has had a lonely life." The tears filled Joan's brown eyes. "Poor fellow!" she echoed, stealing one hand into that of her lover's. "Fancy, if we----" "I can't fancy it with you by my side. And what is more, I don't intend to fancy it," said Lionel, hastily. "Please God, you and I have many happy and useful years before us. How do you like the Firmingham vicarage, Joan?" "Oh, it's lovely, and such a sweet church. But I fear it's too good to be true." "Perhaps it's not what you want," joked the curate. "If I were the Duke, now!" "Ah, that's impossible," she laughed, amused at the idea of being a duchess; "the very idea frightens me." "It needn't," Lionel assured her: "you will never be called upon to wear strawberry leaves, unless the Duke and Frith and Jim all go the way poor Garth is taking. And then Frith's wife may have a little Lord Firmingham. I sincerely hope so, as it would never do for Jim to be the Duke of Pentland." "You don't like him?" "Not passionately," said the curate, dryly. "His wife would make a splendid duchess." "In looks, I have no doubt. But with fifty thousand a year and a great position, she and Jim would do good to neither God nor man." "Lady James Kaimes seems very kind," observed Joan, timidly. "It's all seeming. Of real, true, self-sacrificing kindness she knows absolutely nothing." "But she is so beautiful, Lionel." "So was Jezebel, I expect." "Oh, Lionel!" "Oh, Joan!" he mimicked. "Don't worry your head over Lady Jim. She will always get on well in this world, though I am very doubtful about her position in the next. Come," he pointed down the incline of the lane, "I'll race you to the bottom." "We might meet some one." "I don't care--I'm out for a holiday"; and away flew Lionel down the snowy lane, with his clerical coattails fluttering in the wind. Joan, girlish and simple and extremely young, sped after him, and with rosy cheeks arrived at the goal before her lover. "Come," said the curate, wiping his heated brow, "considering I won three flat races at the 'varsity, that's not bad, Joan." "You humbug, as if I didn't see that you let me win.