im stronger than that of friendship he had helped to give
it life.

Time and absence and Anna Ruthven had obliterated all such thoughts
till now, when Lucy herself had brought them back again with her
winsome ways, and her evident intention to begin just where they had
left off.

"Let Anna tell me yes, and I will at once proclaim our engagement,
which will relieve me from all embarrassments in that quarter," the
clergyman was thinking, just as his housekeeper came up, bringing him
two notes--one in a strange handwriting, and the other in the
graceful, running hand which he recognized as Lucy Harcourt's.

This he opened first, reading as follows:

Prospect Hill, June--.

"MR. LEIGHTON: Dear Sir--Cousin Fanny is to have a picnic down
in the west woods to-morrow afternoon, and she requests the
pleasure of your presence. Mrs. Meredith and Miss Ruthven are to
be invited. Do come.
"Yours truly,
"LUCY."

Yes, he would go, and if Anna's answer had not come before, he would
ask her for it. There would be plenty of opportunities down in those
deep woods. On the whole, it would be pleasanter to hear the answer
from her own lips, and see the blushes on her cheeks when he tried to
look into her eyes.

The imaginative rector could almost see those eyes, and feel the touch
of her hand as he took the other note--the one which Mrs. Meredith had
shut herself in her bedroom to write, and sent slyly by Valencia, who
was to tell no one where she had been.

A gleam of intelligence shot from Valencia's eyes as she took the note
and carried it safely to the parsonage, never yielding to the
temptation to read it, just as she had read the one abstracted from
the book, returning it when read to her mistress's pocket, where she
had found it while the family were at church.

Mrs. Meredith's note was as follows:

"MY DEAR MR. LEIGHTON: It is my niece's wish that I answer the
letter you were so kind as to inclose in the book left for her
last Saturday. She desires me to say that, though she has a very
great regard for you as her clergyman and friend, she cannot be
your wife, and she regrets exceedingly if she has in any way led
you to construe the interest she has always manifested in you
into a deeper feeling.

"She begs me to say that it gives her great pain to refuse one so
noble and good as sh