“She must keep her exertions within proper bounds,” continued the incumbent.  “I am sure she has not strength enough to carry out her good intentions.  I have watched her narrowly, and cannot be mistaken.”

“You do wrong, then, Fairman.  Anxious watching creates fear, without the shadow of an excuse for it.  When we have anything like a bad symptom, it is time to get uneasy.”

“Yes, but what do you call a bad symptom, Doctor?”

“Why, I call your worrying yourself into fidgets, and teazing me into an ill temper, a shocking symptom of bad behaviour.  If it continue, you must take a doze.  Come, my friend, let me prescribe that glass of good old port.  It does credit to the cloth.”

“Seriously, Mayhew, have you never noticed the short, hacking cough that sometimes troubles her?”

“Yes; I noticed it last January for the space of one week, when there was not a person within ten miles of you who was not either hacking, as you call it, or blowing his nose from morning till night.  The dear child had a cold, and so had you, and I, and everybody else.”

“And that sudden flush, too?”

“Why, you’ll be complaining of the bloom on the peach next!  That’s health, and nothing else, take my word for it.”

“I am, perhaps, morbidly apprehensive; but I cannot forget her poor mother.  You attended her, Mayhew, and you know how suddenly that came upon us.  Poor Ellen! what should I do without her!”

“Fairman, join me in wishing success to our young friend here.  Mr Stukely, here’s your good health; and success and happiness attend you.  You’ll find little society here; but it is of the right sort, I can tell you.  You must make yourself at home.”  The minister became more cheerful, and an hour passed in pleasant conversation.  At ten o’clock, the horse of Doctor Mayhew was brought to the gate, and the gentleman departed in great good-humour.  Almost immediately afterwards, the incumbent himself conducted me to my sleeping apartment, and I was not loth to get my rest.  I fell asleep with the beautiful village floating before my weary eyes, and the first day of my residence at the parsonage closed peacefully upon me.

It was at the breakfast table on the succeeding morning that I beheld the daughter of the incumbent, the favourite and companion of my pupils, and mistress of the house—­a maiden in her twentieth year.  She was simply and artlessly attired, gentle and retiring in demeanour, and femininely sweet rather than beautiful in expression.  Her figure was slender, her voice soft and musical; her hair light brown, and worn plain across a forehead white as marble.  The eye-brows which arched the small, rich, hazel eyes were delicately drawn, and the slightly aquiline nose might have formed a study for an artist.  With the exception, however, of this last-named feature, there was little in the individual lineaments of the face to surprise or rivet the observer.