succeed. Fenwick had
loved the man dearly for many years, and Janet Fenwick had loved him
since she had known him as her husband's friend. They both felt that
he was showing more of manhood than they had expected from him in the
persistency of his love, and that he deserved his reward. And they
both believed also that for Mary herself it would be a prosperous and
a happy marriage. And then, where is the married woman who does not
wish that the maiden friend who comes to stay with her should find a
husband in her house? The parson and his wife were altogether of one
mind in this matter, and thought that Mary Lowther ought to be made
to give herself to Harry Gilmore.

"What do you think has happened?" said Mrs. Fenwick, coming to the
window, which opened down to the ground. "Mary Lowther has fallen
into the river."

"Fallen where?" shouted Gilmore, putting up both his hands, and
seeming to prepare himself to rush away among the river gods in
search of his love.

"Don't be alarmed, Mr. Gilmore, she's upstairs, quite safe,--only she
has had a ducking." Then the circumstances were explained, and the
papa declared magisterially that Flo must not play any more with her
ball near the river,--an order to which it was not probable that much
close attention would ever be paid.

"I suppose Miss Lowther will have gone to bed?" said Gilmore.

"On the contrary, I expect her every moment. I suggested bed, and
warm drinks, and cossetting; but she would have none of it. She
scrambled out all by herself, and seemed to think it very good fun."

"Come in at any rate and have some tea," said the Vicar. "If you
start before eleven, I'll walk half the way back with you."

In the mean time, in spite of her accident, Mary had gained the
opportunity that she had required. The point for self-meditation was
not so much whether she would or would not accept Mr. Gilmore now,
as that other point;--was she or was she not wrong to keep him in
suspense. She knew very well that she would not accept him now. It
seemed to her that a girl should know a man very thoroughly before
she would be justified in trusting herself altogether to his hands,
and she thought that her knowledge of Mr. Gilmore was insufficient.
It might however be the case that in such circumstances duty required
her to give him at once an unhesitating answer. She did not find
herself to be a bit nearer to knowing him and to loving him than she
was a month since. Her friend Janet h