suspected that she
might be wrong about Mary. Mary had been staying at the parsonage
lately, and her mother might know very little of what had been passing
in her mind.

He did not feel easier when he found her looking cheerful with the
three ladies in the drawing-room. They were in animated discussion on
some subject which was dropped when he entered, and Mary was copying
the labels from a heap of shallow cabinet drawers, in a minute
handwriting which she was skilled in. Mr. Farebrother was somewhere in
the village, and the three ladies knew nothing of Fred's peculiar
relation to Mary: it was impossible for either of them to propose that
they should walk round the garden, and Fred predicted to himself that
he should have to go away without saying a word to her in private. He
told her first of Christy's arrival and then of his own engagement with
her father; and he was comforted by seeing that this latter news
touched her keenly. She said hurriedly, "I am so glad," and then bent
over her writing to hinder any one from noticing her face. But here
was a subject which Mrs. Farebrother could not let pass.

"You don't mean, my dear Miss Garth, that you are glad to hear of a
young man giving up the Church for which he was educated: you only mean
that things being so, you are glad that he should be under an excellent
man like your father."

"No, really, Mrs. Farebrother, I am glad of both, I fear," said Mary,
cleverly getting rid of one rebellious tear. "I have a dreadfully
secular mind. I never liked any clergyman except the Vicar of
Wakefield and Mr. Farebrother."

"Now why, my dear?" said Mrs. Farebrother, pausing on her large wooden
knitting-needles and looking at Mary. "You have always a good reason
for your opinions, but this astonishes me. Of course I put out of the
question those who preach new doctrine. But why should you dislike
clergymen?"

"Oh dear," said Mary, her face breaking into merriment as she seemed to
consider a moment, "I don't like their neckcloths."

"Why, you don't like Camden's, then," said Miss Winifred, in some
anxiety.

"Yes, I do," said Mary. "I don't like the other clergymen's
neckcloths, because it is they who wear them."

"How very puzzling!" said Miss Noble, feeling that her own intellect
was probably deficient.

"My dear, you are joking. You would have better reasons than these for
slighting so respectable a class of men," said Mrs. Farebrother,
majestically.

"Miss