“The sooner the better, Leonard.  Now while my work is new and taking shape—­Ah! here’s Mrs. Morris.”

Both men were handsome.  Arthur, not much older than Ruth, was of medium height, slender, restless, dark, and eager of glance and speech.  Leonard was nearer the age of Godfrey; fairer than Arthur, of a quieter eye, tall, broad-shouldered, powerful, lithe, and almost tamely placid.  Mrs. Morris met them with animation.

“Have our churchwarden and our rector been having another of their long talks?”

The joint reply was cut short by Godfrey’s imperative hail:  “Leonard!”

As Byington turned that way, Arthur said quietly to Mrs. Morris, “He’s promised to retain charge”—­and nodded toward Isabel.  The nod meant Isabel’s financial investments.

“And mine?” murmured the well-pleased lady.

“Both.”

The two gave heed again to Godfrey, who was loudly asking Leonard, “Why didn’t you tell us the news?”

“Oh,” drawled Leonard smilingly, “I knew father would.”

“I haven’t talked with Godfrey since he came,” said Mrs. Morris; and as she left Arthur she asked his brother:  “What news?  Has the governor truly made him”—­

“District attorney, yes,” said Godfrey.  “Ruth, I think you might have told me.”

“Godfrey, I think you might have asked me,” laughed the girl, drawing Isabel toward Arthur and Leonard, in order to leave Mrs. Morris to Godfrey.

Arthur moved to meet them, but Ruth engaged him with a question, and Isabel turned to Leonard, offering her felicitations with a sweetness that gave Arthur tearing pangs to overhear.

“But when people speak to us of your high office,” he could hear her saying, “we will speak to them of your high fitness for it.  And still, Leonard, you must let us offer you our congratulations, for it is a high office.”

“Thank you,” replied Leonard:  “let me save the congratulations for the day I lay the office down.  Do you, then, really think it high and honorable?”

“Ah,” she rejoined, in a tone of reproach and defense that tortured Arthur, “you know I honor the pursuit of the law.”

Leonard showed a glimmer of drollery.  “Pursuit of the law, yes,” he said; “but the pursuit of the lawbreaker”—­

“Even that,” replied Isabel, “has its frowning honors.”

“But I’m much afraid it seems to you,” he said, “a sort of blindman’s buff played with a club.  It often looks so to the pursued, they say.”

Isabel gave her chin a little lift, and raised her tone for those behind her:  “We shall try not to be among the pursued, Ruth and Arthur and I.”

The young lawyer’s smile broadened.  “My mind is relieved,” he said.

“Relieved!” exclaimed Isabel, with a rosy toss.  “Ruth, dear, here is your brother in distress lest Arthur or we should embarrass him in his new office by breaking the laws!  Mr. Byington, you should not confess such anxieties, even if you are justified in them!”