ill be still better! I shall be
delighted to know her. How I wish I had been aware! Do tell her,
please, that we had no idea of her presence.'

Halborough assured Mrs. Fellmer that he would certainly bear the message;
but as to her coming he was not so sure. The real truth was, however,
that the matter would be decided by him, Rosa having an almost filial
respect for his wishes. But he was uncertain as to the state of her
wardrobe, and had determined that she should not enter the manor-house at
a disadvantage that evening, when there would probably be plenty of
opportunities in the future of her doing so becomingly.

He walked to the farm in long strides. This, then, was the outcome of
his first morning's work as curate here. Things had gone fairly well
with him. He had been ordained; he was in a comfortable parish, where he
would exercise almost sole supervision, the rector being infirm. He had
made a deep impression at starting, and the absence of a hood seemed to
have done him no harm. Moreover, by considerable persuasion and payment,
his father and the dark woman had been shipped off to Canada, where they
were not likely to interfere greatly with his interests.

Rosa came out to meet him. 'Ah! you should have gone to church like a
good girl,' he said.

'Yes--I wished I had afterwards. But I do so hate church as a rule that
even your preaching was underestimated in my mind. It was too bad of
me!'

The girl who spoke thus playfully was fair, tall, and sylph-like, in a
muslin dress, and with just the coquettish _desinvolture_ which an
English girl brings home from abroad, and loses again after a few months
of native life. Joshua was the reverse of playful; the world was too
important a concern for him to indulge in light moods. He told her in
decided, practical phraseology of the invitation.

'Now, Rosa, we must go--that's settled--if you've a dress that can be
made fit to wear all on the hop like this. You didn't, of course, think
of bringing an evening dress to such an out-of-the-way place?'

But Rosa had come from the wrong city to be caught napping in those
matters. 'Yes, I did,' said she. 'One never knows what may turn up.'

'Well done! Then off we go at seven.'

The evening drew on, and at dusk they started on foot, Rosa pulling up
the edge of her skirt under her cloak out of the way of the dews, so that
it formed a great wind-bag all round her, and carrying her satin shoes
under her