ied Jack, and sprang at her with a shout,
quite forgetful of Sunday sobriety.

"Oh, Jack! But you are taller than I am now," said she, arresting his
rough embrace and giving her hand to her mother. They kissed each other,
and, deferring all explanations, Bessie whispered, "May I come home with
you after service and spend the day?"

"Yes, yes--father will be in then. He has had to go to Mrs. Christie:
Mr. Robb has been attending her lately, but the moment she is worse
nothing will pacify her but seeing her old doctor."

They crossed the road to the church in a group. Mr. Phipps came up at
the moment, grotesque and sharp as ever. "Cinderella!" exclaimed he,
lifting his hat with ceremonious politeness. "But where is the prince?"
looking round and feigning surprise.

"Oh, the prince has not come yet," said Bessie with her beautiful blush.

Mrs. Carnegie emitted a gentle sound, calling everybody to order, and
they entered the church. Bessie halted at the Carnegie pew, but the
children filled it, and as she knew those boys were only kept quiet
during service by maternal control, she passed on to the Fairfield pew
in the chancel, where Dora Meadows was already ensconced. Lady Latimer
presently arrived alone: Mr. Logger had committed himself to an opinion
that it was a shame to waste such a glorious morning in church, and had
declined, at the last moment, to come. He preferred to criticise
preachers without hearing them.

The congregation was much fuller than Bessie remembered it formerly.
Beechhurst had reconciled itself to its pastor, and had found him not so
very bad after all. There was no other church within easy reach, divine
worship could not, with safety, be neglected altogether, and the
aversion with which he was regarded did not prove invincible. It was the
interest of the respectable church-people to get over it, and they had
got over it, pleading in extenuation of their indulgence that, in the
first place, the rector was a fixture, and in the second that his want
of social tact was his misfortune rather than his fault, and a clergyman
might have even worse defects than that. Lady Latimer, Admiral Parkins,
Mr. Musgrave, and Miss Wort had supported him in his office from the
first, and now Mr. Phipps and Mr. Carnegie did not systematically absent
themselves from his religious ministrations.

The programme of the service, so to speak, was also considerably
enlarged since Bessie Fairfax went away. There was a nic