is hearers, in laying his words to their own
hearts, did not perceive that they were most particularly directed
against Lizzy, till the sermon waxed warm, and Stockdale nearly broke
down with emotion. In truth his own earnestness, and her sad eyes
looking up at him, were too much for the young man's equanimity. He
hardly knew how he ended. He saw Lizzy, as through a mist, turn and go
away with the rest of the congregation; and shortly afterwards followed
her home.

She invited him to supper, and they sat down alone, her mother having, as
was usual with her on Sunday nights, gone to bed early.

'We will part friends, won't we?' said Lizzy, with forced gaiety, and
never alluding to the sermon: a reticence which rather disappointed him.

'We will,' he said, with a forced smile on his part; and they sat down.

It was the first meal that they had ever shared together in their lives,
and probably the last that they would so share. When it was over, and
the indifferent conversation could no longer be continued, he arose and
took her hand. 'Lizzy,' he said, 'do you say we must part--do you?'

'You do,' she said solemnly. 'I can say no more.'

'Nor I,' said he. 'If that is your answer, good-bye!'

Stockdale bent over her and kissed her, and she involuntarily returned
his kiss. 'I shall go early,' he said hurriedly. 'I shall not see you
again.'

And he did leave early. He fancied, when stepping forth into the grey
morning light, to mount the van which was to carry him away, that he saw
a face between the parted curtains of Lizzy's window, but the light was
faint, and the panes glistened with wet; so he could not be sure.
Stockdale mounted the vehicle, and was gone; and on the following Sunday
the new minister preached in the chapel of the Moynton Wesleyans.

One day, two years after the parting, Stockdale, now settled in a midland
town, came into Nether-Moynton by carrier in the original way. Jogging
along in the van that afternoon he had put questions to the driver, and
the answers that he received interested the minister deeply. The result
of them was that he went without the least hesitation to the door of his
former lodging. It was about six o'clock in the evening, and the same
time of year as when he had left; now, too, the ground was damp and
glistening, the west was bright, and Lizzy's snowdrops were raising their
heads in the border under the wall.

Lizzy must have caught sight of him from the windo