e Thursbys are
full. That's Mrs. Thursby's sister in the red bonnet."

Ruth made no reply. She was following the responses in the psalms with a
marked attention, purposely marked to check conversation, and sufficient
to have daunted anybody but her aunt.

Mrs. Alwynn took a spasmodic interest in the psalm, but it did not last.

"Only two basses in the choir, and the new _Te Deum_, Ruth. How vexed
Mr. Alwynn will be!"

No response from Ruth. Mrs. Alwynn took another turn at her prayer-book,
and then at the congregation.

"'I am become as it were a monster unto--' Ruth! _Ruth!_"

Ruth at last turned her head a quarter of an inch.

_"Sir Charles Danvers is sitting in the free seats by the font!"_

Ruth nailed her eyes to her book, and would vouchsafe no further sign of
attention during the rest of the service; and Dare, on the other side,
anxious to copy Ruth in everything, being equally obdurate, Mrs. Alwynn
had no resource left but to follow the service half aloud to herself, at
the times when the congregation were _not_ supposed to join in, putting
great emphasis on certain words which she felt applicable to herself, in
a manner that effectually prevented any one near her from attending to
the service at all.

It was with a sudden pang that Dare, following Ruth out into the
sunshine after service, perceived for the first time Charles, standing,
tall and distinguished-looking, beside the rather insignificant heir of
all the Thursbys, who regarded him with the mixed admiration and gnawing
envy of a very young man for a man no longer young.

And then--Charles never quite knew how it happened, but with the full
intention of walking back to the rectory with the Alwynns, and staying
to luncheon, he actually found himself in Ruth's very presence,
accepting a cordial invitation to luncheon at Slumberleigh Hall. For the
first time during the last ten years he had done a thing he had no
intention of doing. A temporary long-lost feeling of shyness had seized
upon him as he saw Ruth coming out, tall and pale and graceful, from the
shadow of the church porch into the blaze of the mid-day sunshine. He
had not calculated either for that sudden disconcerting leap of the
heart as her eyes met his. He had an idiotic feeling that she must be
aware that he had run most of the way to church, and that he had
contemplated the burnished circles of her back hair for two hours,
without a glance at the fashionably scraped-up head-dress