een just as well if their clergyman had
married Anna Ruthven instead of this fine city girl with her Parisian
manners.

A gleam of intelligence shot from the gray eyes of Valencia, who was
in a most unreasonable mood.

"She did not like to stain her hands with the nasty hemlock more than
some other folks," she had said, when, after the trying on of the
bridal dress, Lucy had remonstrated with her for some duty neglected,
and then bidden her to go to the church and help if she were needed.

"I must certainly dismiss you," Lucy had said, wondering how Mrs.
Meredith had borne so long with the insolent girl, who went
unwillingly to the church, where she was at work when the carriage
drove by.

She had thought many times of the letter she had read, and, more than
once, when particularly angry, it had been upon her lips to tell her
mistress that she was not the first whom Mr. Leighton had asked to be
his wife, if, indeed, she was his choice at all; but there was
something in Lucy's manner which held her back; besides which, she
was, perhaps, unwilling to confess to her own meanness in reading the
stolen letter.

"I could tell them something if I would," she thought, as she bent
over the hemlock boughs and listened to the remarks; but, for that
time, she kept the secret and worked on moodily, while the
unsuspecting Lucy went her way and was soon alighting at the rectory
gate.

Arthur saw her as she came up the walk and went to meet her.

He was looking very pale and miserable, and his clothes hung loosely
upon him; but he welcomed her kindly leading her in to the fire, and
trying to believe that he was glad to see her sitting there with her
little high-heeled boots upon the fender and the bright hues of her
Balmoral just showing beneath her dress of blue merino.

She went all over the house, as she usually did, suggesting
alterations and improvements, and greatly confusing good Mrs. Brown,
who trudged obediently after her, wondering what she and her master
were ever to do with that gay-plumaged bird, whose ways were so unlike
their own.

"You must drive with me to the church," she said at last to Arthur,
"Fresh air will do you good, and you stay moped up too much. I wanted
you to-day at Prospect Hill, for this morning's express from New York
brought----"

She stood up on tiptoe to whisper the great news to him, but his
pulses did not quicken in the least, even when she told him how
charming was the bridal dress.