nd. It don't affect what's in my own,"

"Hullo!" hailed a voice behind them. "Comparin' love-letters, you
young men?"

The speaker was Nicky-Nan, come to survey the desolation of his
'taty-patch. Young Obed hastily crammed his envelope into his
pocket. But Seth Minards turned about with a frank smile.

"You may see mine, Mr Nanjivell. Look what some kind friend sent me
this mornin'!"

"Well, I s'wow!" exclaimed Nicky-Nan, after a silence of
astonishment. "If _I_ didn' get such another Prince o' Wales's
plume, an' this very mornin' too!"

"You?" cried the two young men together. "See here"--Nicky in his
turn pulled forth an envelope. "But what do it signify at all?
'Tis all a heathen mystery to me."

"Well, and how are we getting along?" asked the Vicar two days later,
as he entered the morning-room where his wife sat busily addressing
circulars and notices of sub-committee meetings.

She looked up, with a small pucker on her forehead. "I suppose it is
drudgery; but do you know, Robert," she confessed, "I really believe
I could get to like this sort of thing in time?"

He laughed, a trifle wistfully. "And do you know, Agatha, why it is
that clergymen and their wives so seldom trouble the Divorce Court--
in comparison, we'll say, with soldiers and soldiers' wives? . . .
No, you are going to answer wrong. It isn't because the parsons are
better men--for I don't believe they are."

"Then it seems to follow that their wives must be better women!"

"You're wrong again. It's because the wife of a parish priest, even
when she has no children of her own"--here the Vicar winced, flushed,
and went on rapidly--"nine times out of ten has a whole parish to
mother--clothing-clubs, Sunday-school classes, mothers' meetings,
children's outings, choir feasts,--it's all looking after people,
clothing 'em, feeding 'em, patting 'em on the head or boxing their
ears and telling 'em to be good--which is just the sort of business a
virtuous woman delights in. _She riseth also while it is yet night,
and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens_.
'A portion to her maidens'; you see she used to measure out the
butter in Solomon's time."

"It wouldn't do in this parish," she said with a laugh. "They'd give
notice at once."

"God forgive me that I brought you to this parish, Agatha!"

"Now if you begin to talk like that--when I've really made a
beginning!" She pointed in triumph to the stacks of miss