The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rector of St. Mark's, by Mary J. Holmes

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Title: The Rector of St. Mark's

Author: Mary J. Holmes

Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19702]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

RECTOR
OF
ST. MARKS

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

THE
RECTOR OF ST. MARK'S

BY

MRS. MARY J. HOLMES

AUTHOR OF "DORA DEANE," "MAGGIE MILLER," "LENA RIVERS,"
"THE ENGLISH ORPHAN," ETC.

M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,
CHICAGO.

* * * * *

THE RECTOR OF ST. MARK'S

CHAPTER I.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON.

The Sunday sermon was finished, and the young rector of St. Mark's
turned gladly from his study-table to the pleasant south window where
the June roses were peeping in, and abandoned himself for a few
moments to the feeling of relief he always experienced when his week's
work was done. To say that no secular thoughts had intruded themselves
upon the rector's mind, as he planned and wrote that sermon, would not
be true; for, though morbidly conscientious on many points and
earnestly striving to be a faithful shepherd of the souls committed to
his care, Arthur Leighton possessed the natural desire that those who
listened to him should not only think well of what he taught but also
of the form in which the teaching was presented. When he became a
clergyman he did not cease to be a man, with all a man's capacity to
love and to be loved, and so, though he fought and prayed against it,
he had seldom brought a sermon to the people of St. Mark's in which
there was not a thought of Anna Ruthven's soft, brown eyes, and the
way they would look at him across the heads of the congregation. Anna
le