l. I can't call
just now, as I am going to dine with my aunts, who are at the Blue
Boar; but, if you will pardon the lateness of the hour, I will call as
I return to ask for him.--Ever yours,

"F. C. WENTWORTH."

Such was the Curate's note. While he scribbled it, little Rosa stood
apart watching him with admiring eyes. He had said she was too pretty
to be sent across Grange Lane by herself at this hour, though it was
still no more than twilight; and he looked up at her for an instant as
he said the words,--quite enough to set Rosa's poor little heart
beating with childish romantical excitement. If she could but have
peeped into the note to see what he said!--for perhaps, after all,
there might not be anything "between" him and Miss Lucy--and perhaps--
The poor little thing stood watching, deaf to her aunt's call, looking
at the strange ease with which that small epistle was written, and
thinking it half divine to have such mastery of words and pen. Mr
Wentworth threw it to Sam as if it were a trifle; but Rosa's lively
imagination could already conceive the possibility of living upon such
trifles and making existence out of them; so the child stood with her
pretty curls about her ears, and her bright eyes gleaming dewy over
the fair, flushed, rosebud cheeks, in a flutter of roused and innocent
imagination anticipating her fate. As for Mr Wentworth, it is doubtful
whether he saw Rosa, as he swung himself round upon the stool he was
seated on, and turned his face towards the door. Somehow he was
comforted in his mind by the conviction that it was his duty to call
at Mr Wodehouse's as he came back. The evening brightened up and
looked less dismal. The illness of the respected father of the house
did not oppress the young man. He thought not of the sick-room, but of
the low chair in one corner, beside the work-table where Lucy had
always basketfuls of sewing in hand. He could fancy he saw the work
drop on her knee, and the blue eyes raised. It was a pretty picture
that he framed for himself as he looked out with a half smile into the
blue twilight through the open door of Elsworthy's shop. And it was
clearly his duty to call. He grew almost jocular in the exhilaration
of his spirits.

"The Miss Wentworths don't approve of memorial windows, Elsworthy," he
said; "and, indeed, if you think it necessary to cut off one of the
chief people in Carlingford by way of supplying St Roque's with a
little painted glass--"

"N