will not officiate. So take care."

"The caution is useless. I am not going to be married. I shall live
single, like your sister Margaret, Mr. Hall."

"Very well. You might do worse. Margaret is not unhappy. She has her
books for a pleasure, and her brother for a care, and is content. If
ever you want a home, if the day should come when Briarfield rectory is
yours no longer, come to Nunnely vicarage. Should the old maid and
bachelor be still living, they will make you tenderly welcome."

"There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, who had kept the nosegay
she had selected for him till this moment, "_you_ don't care for a
bouquet, but you must give it to Margaret; only--to be sentimental for
once--keep that little forget-me-not, which is a wild flower I gathered
from the grass; and--to be still more sentimental--let me take two or
three of the blue blossoms and put them in my souvenir."

And she took out a small book with enamelled cover and silver clasp,
wherein, having opened it, she inserted the flowers, writing round them
in pencil, "To be kept for the sake of the Rev. Cyril Hall, my friend.
May --, 18--."

The Rev. Cyril Hall, on his part, also placed a sprig in safety between
the leaves of a pocket Testament. He only wrote on the margin,
"Caroline."

"Now," said he, smiling, "I trust we are romantic enough. Miss Keeldar,"
he continued (the curates, by-the-bye, during this conversation, were
too much occupied with their own jokes to notice what passed at the
other end of the table), "I hope you are laughing at this trait of
'_exaltation_' in the old gray-headed vicar; but the fact is, I am so
used to comply with the requests of this young friend of yours, I don't
know how to refuse her when she tells me to do anything. You would say
it is not much in my way to traffic with flowers and forget-me-nots;
but, you see, when requested to be sentimental, I am obedient."

"He is naturally rather sentimental," remarked Caroline. "Margaret told
me so, and I know what pleases him."

"That you should be good and happy? Yes; that is one of my greatest
pleasures. May God long preserve to you the blessings of peace and
innocence! By which phrase I mean _comparative_ innocence; for in His
sight, I am well aware, _none_ are pure. What to our human perceptions
looks spotless as we fancy angels, is to Him but frailty, needing the
blood of His Son to cleanse, and the strength of His Spirit to sustain.
Let us each and all ch