which soaked the new-mown hay, and turned the fields into swamps,
driving the labourers and their wives, who else had been too busy, to
take recreation in a ceremony of scandal. For of course the whole
story had been whispered abroad. It was to keep them away that the
Rector had chosen a date in the very middle of the hay-harvest, and
they knew it and enjoyed his discomfiture. He, on his part, when the
morning broke with black and low-lying clouds, had been tempted to
read the service in the parlour at home; but his old obstinacy had
asserted itself. Hetty's feelings he did not consider.

The congregation pitied Hetty. She, with Molly to help, had been the
parish alms-giver, here and at Epworth; and though the alms had been
small, kind words had gone with the giving. Of gratitude--active
gratitude--they were by race incapable: also they were shrewd enough
to detect the Wesley habit of condescending to be kind. She belonged
to another world than theirs: she was a lady, blood and bone.
But they were proud of her beauty, and talked of it, and forgave her
for the sake of it.

They hated the Rector; yet with so much of fear as kept them huddled
to-day at the west end under the dark gallery. A space of empty pews
divided them from Mrs. Wesley, standing solitary behind her daughter
at the chancel step.

"O God, who hast consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an
excellent mystery that in it is signified and represented the
spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his Church: look
mercifully upon these thy servants. . . ."

A squall of rain burst upon the south windows, darkening the nave.
Mrs. Wesley started, and involuntarily her hands went up towards her
ears. Then she remembered, dropped them and stood listening with her
arms rigid.

Under a penthouse in the parsonage yard, Molly and Johnny Whitelamb
watched the downpour, and the cocks and hens dismally ruffling under
shelter of the eaves.

"She was the best of us all, the bravest and the cleverest."

"She was like no one in the world," said Johnny.

"And the most loyal. She loved me best, and I have done nothing for
her."

"You did what you could, Miss Molly."

"If I were a man--Oh, Johnny, of what use are my brothers to me?"

Johnny was silent.

"The others were jealous of her. She could no more help excelling
them in wit and spirits than she could in looks. None of them
understood her, but I only--and you, I think, a little."

"