“My!” exclaimed Pigott, and the milk-jug rolled unheeded on the floor.

“Hum!  I suppose I had better explain,” began he.

“I think you have spilt the milk,” added she.

“That we have become engaged and are——­”

“All to pieces, I declare,” broke in Angela, with her head somewhere near the carpet.

And then they both laughed.

“Well, I never, no, not in all my born days!  Sir and Miss Angela, all I have got to say about this extraordinary proceeding”—­they glanced at each other in alarm—­“is that I am very glad to hear on it, and I hope and pray how as you may be happy, and, if you treat my Angela right, you’ll be just the happiest and luckiest man in the three kingdoms, including Ireland the Royal Family, and, if you treat her wrong, worse will come to you; and her poor mother’s last words, as I heard with my own ears, will come true to you, and serve you right—­ and there’s all the milk upon the floor.  And God bless you both, my dears, is the prayer of an old woman.”

And here the worthy soul broke down, and began to cry, nor were
Angela’s eyes free from tears.

After this little episode, breakfast proceeded in something like the usual way.  Church was at 10.30, and, a while before the hour, Arthur and Angela strolled down to the spot that had already become as holy ground to them, and looked into each other’s eyes, and said again the same sweet words.  Then they went on, and mingling with the little congregation—­that did not number more than thirty souls—­they passed into the cool quiet of the church.

“Lawks!” said a woman, as they went by, “ain’t she just a beauty.  What a pretty wedding they’d make!”

Arthur overheard it, and noted the woman, and afterwards found a pretext to give her five shillings, because he said it was a lucky omen.

On the communion-table of the pretty little church there was spread the “fair white cloth” of the rubric.  It was the day for the monthly celebration of the Sacrament, that met the religious requirements of the village.

“Will you stay to the Sacrament with me?” whispered Angela to her lover, in the interval between their seating themselves and the entry of the clergyman, Mr. Fraser’s locum tenens.

Arthur nodded assent.

And so, when the time came, those two went up together to the altar-rails, and, kneeling side by side, ate of the bread and drank of the cup, and, rising, departed thence with a new link between them.  For, be sure, part of the prayers which they offered up at that high moment were in humble petition to the Almighty to set His solemn seal and blessing on their love.  Indeed, so far as Angela was concerned, there were few acts of her simple life that she did not consecrate by prayer, how much more, then, was she bent on bringing this, the greatest of all her acts, before her Maker’s throne.