five shillings; for the preaching of
a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening'"--began Darden for the
Bishop's information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the list
of the minister's perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and a
woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With her
entered the breeze from the river, driving before it the smoke wreaths,
and blowing the papers from the table to the floor.

Darden stamped his foot. "Woman, I have business, I tell ye,--business
with the Bishop of London! I've kept his Lordship at the door this
se'nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uon
me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone and
keep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?"

"Audrey, leave the room!" commanded the woman. "I have something to say
that's not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There's news, I tell you."

The minister glanced at his wife; then knocked the ashes from his pipe and
nodded dismissal to Audrey. His late secretary slipped from her seat and
left the room, not without alacrity.

"Well?" demanded Darden, when the sound of the quick young feet had died
away. "Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, but
some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat and
corner broomstick."

Mistress Deborah Darden pressed her thin lips together, and eyed her lord
and master with scant measure of conjugal fondness. "It's about some one
nearer home than your bishops and commissaries," she said. "Hide passed by
this morning, going to the river field. I was in the garden, and he
stopped to speak to me. Mr. Haward is home from England. He came to the
great house last night, and he ordered his horse for ten o'clock this
morning, and asked the nearest way through the fields to the parsonage."

Darden whistled, and put down his drink untasted.

"Enter the most powerful gentleman of my vestry!" he exclaimed. "He'll be
that in a month's time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and with
the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away
this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my
Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and get
on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave him to me."

"And Audrey?" said his wife.

Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon ei