pletely worn out.

Now then, Miss, what will 'ee have to take?"

She bustled into the sitting-room after her lodger, and saw her comfortably settled in a big arm-chair.

"The wind's nippy yet," she said, "you ought never to have gone out: you must wait till the zun do come." Mary smiled.

"Amy tells me it is certain to be out after February 14th; it shines then on the green door. I've been teasing her-telling her 'twas black."

A spot of color burnt on Mrs. Shore's cheeks.

""Tis green, right enough," she said seriously. "I mind when 'twere painted, 'bout three years back; the Rector's mighty partic'lar 'bout havin' his place kep' in order."

"What is his name?" said Mary.

"Lor, Miss! you bin here a week an' never 'eard that? Mr. Holmes we do call 'un-the Rev. Jonathan Holmes."

She rolled the full title round her tongue with unction.

"Not a very ordinary name," said Mary, with a little gasp.

"No, Miss, he b'aint an ordinary man neither-very kind and pitiful and lovin' to all young folks and children, but just a hater, Miss, of women! zed to un' once, he did come and stand inside so friendly-like when Amy hurt her foot, inquiring for her, tho' Libby she's his fav'rite, as you might say, I zed to un': 'Mr. Holmes,' I zed, 'Amy and Libby they'll be growin' up one of these days, and what'll you do then, zur? Be you goin' to drop 'em like a hot coal?' He didn't say much, you know, Miss; just wrinkled up his eyes and kind o' laughed, and then he said politely, 'No need to talk about that yet, Mrs. Shore. Good day! An' 'e went shakin' off down the road laughin'."

"He still has that funny, shaky walk, then," said Mary.

The next instant she could have bit

ten out her tongue for using that word "still," but Mrs. Shore passed it unnoticed.

"He do tremble when he's movin', Miss, like as if his feet was hung on wires; spite o' that, he's a fine, upstandin' gentleman."

Mrs. Shore withdrew, and Mary was left by herself. She noticed, half unconsciously, yet with that intensity with which one does notice minor details in any time of stress, that the under part of the currant-bushes in the little garden was covered with green lichen, while the tops pointed upward with a certain gallant erectness, as if preparing for the coming of spring.

The carrier's cart went lumbering by on the turnpike-road, and after it the sound of a bicycle-bell, muffled on the misty, dank air, was carried to her faintly.

On other days, with the delightful and petty curiosity to which she had given herself up on first coming to West Mendip, she would have gone to the little window and looked down the road to see the rider, but now the sound drew her back to the thoughts she had unconsciously evaded.

She had come in sanctuary from the first stages of a mortal illness to the very village over which her old lover was spiritual president. She had half guessed it in that moment when Amy had imitated the Rector's walk, but who would have imagined that Jonathan would end his days in a house of the appearance of Rectory!

In the old days they had planned either a city living-a house outwardly gloomy and grimy, within full of color and delight-or some sweet old rectory away in the country, under the brow of a hill swept by gentle winds, covered with creepers colored by the sun. No great, grim house on a windswept hill-top.

She sighed: perhaps here he had merged their two ideals-gloom with

walked quickly, passing the green doo almost at a run, but with heightened senses she was aware of a blotch of deeper darkness within its overhanging shadow. Some village lovers already occupied its friendly shade. She walked on and on down the winding. lane, her heart beating quickly, but not more quickly than it had beaten all the afternoon, as her daring plan had been thought of, deliberated, resolved upon. When she retraced her steps, her light and delicate footsteps ringing out with a subtle difference from those of other wayfarers, the lovers near the green door shrank back breathlessly, then once more continued their low-toned conversation as she passed from sight and mind. Perhaps the ears of love are slightly deafened; had the two listened they would have known that she had paused just twenty yards beyond them and walked on tiptoe to the bit of wall of which Amy had spoken.

It over hung the corner by the schoolhouse, and somewhere Amy had said she had climbed it. What had been done could be done again. Mary searched anxiously for some foothold in the wall, and finding a loosened stone commenced the ascent with intrepid courage. When she reached the top, breathless, more bruised and -ри әле ром иврәләр ва

ered possible, she sat still for an instant and looked with troubled eyes down the road. Light gleamed from the windows. A man crossed the green carrying buckets of water. One of them clinked against the hard ground as he put it down to talk to a friend. The oilman's voice, loud and raucous, filled the neighborhood with noise as he advertised his wares. But up here all was quiet. Mary realized that in the shade of the trees, uncovered now and bare, but still drooping over the top of the wall on which she sat, she could not be seen. She drew a long breath of relief and looked about her with interest. A few yards away on her right the wall ended in the green door which had had so much to do with village history. Beneath her a broad path, little more than a path, but yet giving the impression somehow of stateliness and dignity, ran up a gentle slope between the trees that sheltered her to another wall. She could see nothing but that, and the roof-tops of the Rectory. Beyond the wall she could imagine trim lawns, sloping banks, flower-beds, empty now, but in the spring filled to overflowing. Around the house a low veranda perhaps, on to which uncurtained windows threw a ruddy light, but none of this could she see. Now that she was on the top of the wall she almost repented her temerity; and then suddenly the church bells rang out. What for? She had been in West Mendip less than a week, she did not know if the bell-ringers were practising or ringing for a week-night service. huddled herself a little closer together trying to keep the wind from her chest. And as she did so she was aware of another sound,-a rasping and scraping and grinding in the wall beneath her feet. Some one else was coming up, that was certain. It was equally certain that it was impossible for her to hide. She turned apprehensive eyes

She

upon the determined face of Amy the dwarf.

"I zee'd you," said Amy briefly, and she too huddled down watching beside he" mother's lodger.

Mary regarded her coolly. Of course in an unenviable position it was well she was ready to take the upper hand.

"Why did you follow me?" she said. "Because I thought you'd fall off," said Amy.

But Mary probed the inconsistency of the speech with sharpness.

"That was not the reason," she said; "you wanted to know why I came. Well, I came to watch, to see what you saw."

"Hush!" said Amy.

What appeared to be a hole in the wall at the other end opened. Mary saw now that it was a door, that second green door of which Amy had spoken; and for a moment she had a glimpse of those things which she had imagined,-lighted windows, sloping lawns. Then the light was half obstructed; some one had passed through the aperture, once more the door was shut. The moonlight fell here with a patch of brilliancy, there was obstructed by shadow. The thin and erect form of the Rector passed with the same old walk,-the walk which brought hysterical tears and laughter to Mary's eyes and throat, so pregnant was it with memory,-around the curve and out through the other green door.

"See!" said Amy in a whisper, touching her arm. "They heard him coming and now they've moved."

And she pointed with a little pleased smile to two figures walking decorously a yard apart in the centre of the highroad. The Rector's voice rang out in a ringing salute as he hurried on and into the church.

"Is he going there for a service?" Mary asked.

Amy shook her head.

"No, 'tis practice night. He goes up every now and then to hear the choir sing, but he don't stay long. He'll soon be back."

She settled herself more comfortably on the wall. The minutes passed by interminably. The oilman had moved away from the village, and the lights from his cart shone from the turnpike above the blacksmith's shop. The church windows glowed with a pale light, but the lamp above the gateway was not lighted. It was impossible to tell at what moment the Rector's figure emerged from beneath it. After two or three false alarms Mary saw him come slowly back again. He passed through the green door and went back the way he had come. But this time he did not shut the second green door behind him.

"Rector must be comin' back again," commented Amy in surprise, and in that hope they waited, Mary holding her breath. A strange sense of expectation possessed her. She told herself that it was absurd; was it unlikely that she who had known Jonathan so well in his youth should misinterpret him in old age? He was going to do something secretive, something about which he felt a strange sense of guiltiness. She knew it by the hump in his shoulders. And, in the meantime, waiting for him, she tried to get Amy to climb down. But the little dwarf's affection was real, and curiosity her ruling passion.

"I bain't a-goin' unless you be goin' too," she said.

And so together, silent as before, they watched the Rector's return. Then for an instant after he shut the door they lost him. With an acute sense of disappointment Mary thought he had shut the door from the inside, but in another moment she saw him moving like a creeping shadow on the grass.

For some reason he did not wish his footsteps heard, but with all her knowledge it was Amy who first arrived at the realization of his purpose.

She spoke harshly under her breath, jumping up and down on the wall in her excitement.

"He be goin' to listen!" she said incredulously.

And very truly, the Rector had waited silent behind the green door. Amy became almost unmanageable.

"They must be there again, and he'll hear what they do say."

"But he'll never tell," said Mary tranquilly.

She wondered, listening to her own voice, that it was not choked by pity. Instantaneously with Amy's ejaculation there had risen to her mind a comprehension of his action, ungentlemanly, dishonorable, indefensible to all except herself-who knew.

Amy kept up an excited muttering beneath her breath, watching with intensity the fine head, silver-white in the moonlight, bent in the attitude of a listener on one side of the door.

"That," she said scornfully, "is how he always knows so much about it. Never a couple do go to him about having the banns put up but what he can tell 'em a main sight about the courting. He do know what nights they be out on and for how long they do meet, and once he said to John Smalley-what's his gardener as how when 'twere raining he'd better bring Meg in and talk to her in the housekeeper's room. Did flabbergast John so much as after that he never went out with Meg no more, because he thought as she'd been telling as how she did go out with him. I do reckon," she added fiercely, "as the Rector be a mean man!"

Mary scarcely heard her. She was in a whirl of pity. If Jonathan couldn't marry her, why had he not 2321

LIVING AGE. VOL. XLIV.

married someone else and not left himself to sadness and gloom, dependent upon the simple courtship of simple people to assuage the aching of his own heart. Did he carry the memory of the words he heard back to his quiet study, as she had carried the knowledge of other people's happiness through all these years of separation? Was that why he loved chidren and young folks, and hated women, to quote Mrs. Shore, thinking by hating in the abstract to continué his scorn of her; mysteriously torn from him by irate guardians in her early youth; and by loving children and young people disproving in action what had never been more than theory. Jonathan hating? She watched him creep back across the grass, after the departure of the unobserved lovers, with a tender little smile.

Whimsical or austere, he was her Jonathan still. She descended the wall with an intrepidity and imperviousness to bruises which won even Amy's admiration, and walked with her chattering and laughing back to the cottage door, enjoining by her manner secrecy as to her part in the evening's performance, a secrecy with regard to her which Amy loyally kept. But she placed no restriction on herself.

And so it came about that in a week's time the green door was de-. serted. Little was said in the village, the law of rustic courtship is secrecy, and if that secrecy in regard to trivialities partakes of the action of the ostrich hiding his head in the sand, this is not the case in matters of real importance. Amy the dwarf went from one couple to another with her words of warning, full of a stern indignation against the Rector and of a seething sense of her own importance. She retailed, not without embellishments, her adventure on the wall, and