consequence of a violent
disagreement with his rector, in which he had been most fully borne out
by his uncle, who, by the bye, was not the sort of man who would have
supported his own brother, had he been in the wrong. Since then Frank
Maberly had been staying with his uncle, and, as he expressed it,
"working the slums" at Exeter.

Miss Thornton sat in the drawing-room at Drumston the day after Tom's
visit to the Bishop, waiting dinner for the new Curate. Tom and she had
been wondering how he would come. Miss Thornton said, probably in the
Bishop's carriage; but Tom was inclined to think he would ride over.
The dinner time was past some ten minutes, when they saw a man in black
put his hand on the garden-gate, vault over, and run breathless up to
the hall-door. Tom had recognised him and dashed out to receive him,
but ere he had time to say "good day" even, the new comer pulled out
his watch, and, having looked at it, said in a tone of vexation:--

"Twenty-one minutes, as near as possible; nay, a little over. By Jove!
how pursy a fellow gets mewed up in town! How far do you call it, now,
from the Buller Arms?"

"It is close upon four miles," said Tom, highly amused.

"So they told me," replied Frank Maberly. "I left my portmanteau there,
and the landlord-fellow had the audacity to say in conversation that I
couldn't run the four miles in twenty minutes. It's lucky a parson
can't bet, or I should have lost my money. But the last mile is very
much up-hill, as you must allow."

"I'll tell you what, sir," said Tom; "there isn't a man in this parish
would go that four mile under twenty minutes. If any man could, I ought
to know of it."

Miss Thornton had listened to this conversation with wonder not unmixed
with amusement. At first she had concluded that the Bishop's carriage
was upset, and that Frank was the breathless messenger sent forward to
chronicle the mishap. But her tact soon showed the sort of person she
had to deal with, for she was not unacquainted with the performances of
public schoolboys. She laughed when she called to mind the
BOULEVERSEMENT that used to take place when Lord Charles and Lord
Frederick came home from Harrow, and invaded her quiet school-room. So
she advanced into the passage to meet the new-comer with one of her
pleasantest smiles.

"I must claim an old woman's privilege of introducing myself, Mr.
Maberly," she said. "Your uncle was tutor to the B----s, when I was
governess to the D