ledge," he said aloud. "She would not dare to
chuck me now, though, even if she does love the other one; but I've
more than half a mind to put this in the fire. It may be to tell him
that she's settled things with me; but it would not be a bad joke to
let him hear it for himself in church, and her telling him nothing
about it, good or bad, would let him know she did not care much for
him."

In another moment there was a brief blaze in the fire, and Rose's note
was reduced to ashes.

The next morning Tom Burney rose with the feeling that he trod on air,
such a strange exhilaration of spirit possessed him.

He had heard nothing from Rose during the week, and her very silence
filled him with hope. If she meant to refuse him, he was almost sure
that she would have put him out of his misery before this. He was not
generally a vain fellow, but to-day his toilet was a matter of moment;
his tie was re-adjusted half a dozen times, and he asked his landlady
to give him a chrysanthemum for his buttonhole.

"Goin' courtin'?" she said, with a laugh as she pinned it in for him.
And Tom coloured rosy red, but said nothing.

He started early for church, hoping that he might catch a glimpse of
Rose as she passed in with the other servants from the Court; but
either she had got there before him, or, for some unknown cause, she
had been detained at home. Dixon presently appeared, smart and neat,
giving Tom an affable nod as he passed up the path to the church; but
Tom's eyes were fixed straight in front of him, and he ignored the
greeting.

"I'll not pretend to be friends when I ain't," he said to himself.

Presently the hurrying bell warned the outside group of stragglers to
make their way into church; and Tom took his usual seat at the end of
the nave. It is to be feared that his thoughts that morning were not
occupied with devotion. Prayer and psalm passed unheeded over his
head; but when, at the end of the second lesson, there was a pause, and
the rector turned over the leaves of a book in front of him, Tom lifted
his head and waited for the banns that would follow. Before long he
might be listening to the publishing of his own.

"I publish the banns of marriage between William Dixon, bachelor, and
Rose Lancaster, spinster, both of this parish. . . ."

Was it some ghastly nightmare, Tom wondered, as he clutched at the seat
in front of him? But the suppressed grin on the faces near him, the
foolish smile with which