-throned, the Life of life
Thy test no stagnant moat half-filled with mud,
But living waters witnessing in flood!
Thy priestess, beauty-clad, and gospel-shod,
A fellow laborer in the earth with God!
Good will art thou, and goodness all thy arts--
Doves to their windows, and to thee fly hearts!
Take of the corn in thy dear shelter grown,
Which else the storm had all too rudely blown;
When to a higher temple thou shalt mount,
Thy earthly gifts in heavenly friends shall count;
Let these first-fruits enter thy lofty door,
And golden lie upon thy golden floor.

G.M.D.

PORTO FINO, _December_, 1878.

PAUL FABER.

CHAPTER I.

THE LANE.

The rector sat on the box of his carriage, driving his horses toward his
church, the grand old abbey-church of Glaston. His wife was inside, and
an old woman--he had stopped on the road to take her up--sat with her
basket on the foot-board behind. His coachman sat beside him; he never
took the reins when his master was there. Mr. Bevis drove like a
gentleman, in an easy, informal, yet thoroughly business-like way. His
horses were black--large, well-bred, and well-fed, but neither young nor
showy, and the harness was just the least bit shabby. Indeed, the entire
turnout, including his own hat and the coachman's, offered the beholder
that aspect of indifference to show, which, by the suggestion of a
nodding acquaintance with poverty, gave it the right clerical air of
being not of this world. Mrs. Bevis had her basket on the seat before
her, containing, beneath an upper stratum of flowers, some of the first
rhubarb of the season and a pound or two of fresh butter for a poor
relation in the town.

The rector was a man about sixty, with keen gray eyes, a good-humored
mouth, a nose whose enlargement had not of late gone in the direction of
its original design, and a face more than inclining to the rubicund,
suggestive of good living as well as open air. Altogether he had the
look of a man who knew what he was about, and was on tolerable terms
with himself, and on still better with his neighbor. The heart under his
ribs was larger even than indicated by the benevolence of his
countenance and the humor hovering over his mouth. Upon the countenance
of his wife rested a placidity sinking almost into fatuity. Its features
were rather indications than completions, but there was a consciousness
of comfort about the mouth, and the eyes were alive.

They we