An odd figure looked Mr. Carriston, shuffling about in a pair of comfortable old slippers, a very raven in blackness, save for the wide-brimmed straw hat shading his gray hairs, his benevolent-looking face. With a green watering-pan in one hand, and the scissors in the other, he pried and peered among his beloved flowers, with his two pets—a cat and a magpie—at his heels, and clipped off a dead leaf here, plucked a withered blossom there, with the tenderest anxiety for the well-being of the roses. “Dear, dear!” sighed the Rector, pausing before a drooping-looking Gloire de Dijon; “this does not seem at all healthy. It needs rain—in fact, I think the flowers would be none the worse of a shower or so; but there’s no sign of rain,” looking anxiously up to the cloudless sky. “I wonder if a little manure”— Down went the Rector on his knees, and began grubbing about the roots of the plant, much to the discomfort of the magpie, who hopped about near him in an agitated manner. “A brass thimble,” said Mr. Carriston, making a discovery, “a copper, and three blue beads. The roots of the plant wounded, too, with scratching. This is your work, Simon. I wish you would hide your rubbish somewhere else.” The magpie, otherwise Simon, made a vicious peck at the Rector’s hand, to revenge himself for the discovery of his treasure; then, anxious to save something, snatched up the thimble and made off hastily. “Too bad of Simon,” murmured Mr. Carriston, rubbing his nose in a vexed manner. “I will have to ask Mukle to keep him in the back yard. Ah, Mukle! what is it?” Mukle—to the rector, Mrs. Mukle to her friends—was a hard-featured, bony woman, who looked as if she had been cut out of a deal board. Her cooking was much more agreeable than her appearance, and, having been with the rector—whom she adored—for many years, she knew to a turn what he liked and what he did not like, therefore suited him admirably in her double capacity of cook and housekeeper. “Mr. Roylands, sir!” announced Mukle grimly. “Oh, where is he?” “Study, sir,” responded Mukle, who was a lady with a firm belief in the golden rule of silence. “Ask him to come here.” An assenting sniff was Mukle’s only reply, and, turning on her heel in a military fashion,—the late Mr. Mukle had been a soldier,—she strode back to the house like a grenadier. Meanwhile, Mr. Carriston, having risen to his feet, was dusting his knees, and, while thus engaged, saw Maurice coming towards him. Assuredly the master of the Grange was a fine specimen of humanity, for he was over six feet in height, and, being arrayed in shooting-coat, knickerbockers, and deerstalker’s hat, looked a remarkably striking figure. He would have looked better had his face borne a smile, but, as it was, he came solemnly forward and took the rector’s outstretched hand as if he was chief mourner at a funeral.