to overflowing when May
and her mother entered that evening.

"It's very hot, May. I'm not sure that I can stay," said Mrs. Webster,
pausing in the doorway.

"Oh yes, mother; we'll see it through to the bitter end," said May, in
an undertone. "There are seats in the front."

Mrs. Webster picked her way daintily through the crowd, and Mr.
Lessing, who was seated at the end of one of the desks, stood up to let
her pass. May's skirt caught against a nail, as she followed, and Paul
bent to set it free; but as May turned smiling to thank him, it gave
her a faint shock of surprise to read the dislike that found expression
in his eyes. Her smile faded, and she passed on her way with a haughty
little bow.

"I wonder why he hates me? I am not aware that any man has ever viewed
me with honest dislike before," she thought, as she took her seat by
her mother.

Paul, on his side, was inspired with the same unwilling admiration and
active irritation as on the occasion of their first meeting at
Brussels. Beautiful she undoubtedly was; so beautiful that his eyes
unconsciously followed her every movement. The cordial greeting she
accorded the rector--so different from her bow to himself,--and the
poise of her head, as she turned to look at the rows of expectant faces
behind her, giving a smiling nod to Mrs. Macdonald, who, duly impressed
with the gravity of the occasion, sat by the side of her John with her
hands clasping a clean pocket-handkerchief as if she were at church.
Paul tried to define the cause of his annoyance as he looked at her.

"It is the hard crust of indifference which society people cultivate to
such perfection; it's the assurance which beauty assumes. She has come
here most probably in search of a new sensation," he thought.

But the rector, who sat on a platform at the end of the room, with his
two churchwardens, was already on his feet, and Paul pocketed his
annoyance and settled himself to listen.

"My friends," he began, "we have met to-night to consider on what basis
our school shall be carried on; whether at this crisis in school
affairs, which demands an outlay of some seven or eight hundred pounds,
the voluntary system shall be continued; or whether it shall be turned
into a board school, paid for out of the rates, and managed by a
committee chosen by the votes of the people. It is not a question that
it has been necessary for us to discuss before. My people, I believe
to a man, have been