e'd heard Mrs. Eustis
tried once or twice to pull off a match to suit herself, but Miss Mary
Virginia wouldn't stand for it."

"Why, naturally, Mrs. Eustis would like to see the child well settled
in life," said I.

"Oh, you don't have to be a Christian _all_ the time," said he calmly.
"I know Mrs. Eustis, too. She talked to me for an hour and a half
without stopping, one night last week. See here, parson: Inglesby's
got a roll that outweighs his record. Suppose he wants to settle down
and reform--with a young wife to help him do it--wouldn't it be a real
Christian job to lady's-aid him?"

I eyed him askance.

"Now there's Laurence," went on the Butterfly Man, speculatively.
"Laurence is making plenty of trouble, but not so much money. No, Mrs.
Eustis wouldn't faint at the notion of Inglesby, but she'd keel over
like a perfect lady at the bare thought of Laurence."

"I don't see," said I, crossly, "why she should be called upon to
faint for either of them. Inglesby's--Inglesby. That makes him
impossible. As for the boy, why, he rocked that child in her cradle."

"That didn't keep either of them from growing up a man and a woman.
Looks to me as if they were beginning to find it out, parson."

I considered his idea, and found it so eminently right, proper, and
beautiful, that I smiled over it. "It would be ideal," I admitted.

"Her mother wouldn't agree with you, though her father might," he said
dryly. And he asked:

"Ever had a hunch?"

"A presentiment, you mean?"

"No; a hunch. Well, I've got one. I've got a hunch there's trouble
ahead for that girl."

This seemed so improbable, in the light of her fortunate days, that I
smiled cheerfully.

"Well, if there should be,--here are you and I to stand by."

"Sure," said he, laconically, "that's all we're here for--to stand
by."

Although it was January, the weather was again springlike. All day the
air was like a golden wine, drenched in a golden sun. All day in the
cedars' dark and vivid green the little wax-wings flew in and out, and
everywhere the blackberry bramble that "would grace the parlors of
heaven" was unfolding its crisp red leaves and white buds; and all the
roads and woods were gay with the scarlet berries of the casida, which
the robins love. And the nights were clear and still and starry,
nights of a beauty so vital one sensed it as something alive.

Because Mary Virginia was to spend that night at the Parish House,
Mrs. Eustis having be