had been no mistake.  From the first moment of his coming much about Clavering Rectory the only question had been about his income.  “I don’t think Mr. Saul ever said a word to me except about the poor people and the church services,” said Fanny.  “That was merely his way,” said Mrs. Clavering.  “Then he must be a goose,” said Fanny.  “I am very sorry if I have made him unhappy, but he had no business to come to me in that way.”

“I suppose I shall have to look for another curate,” said the Rector.  But this was said in private to his wife.

“I don’t see that at all,” said Mrs. Clavering.  “With many men it would be so; but I think you will find that he will take an answer, and that there will be an end of it.”

Fanny, perhaps, had a right to be indignant, for certainly Mr. Saul had given her no fair warning of his intention.  Mary had for some months been intent rather on Mr. Fielding’s church matters than on those going on in her own parish, and therefore there had been nothing singular in the fact that Mr. Saul had said more on such matters to Fanny than to her sister.  Fanny was eager and active, and as Mr. Saul was very eager and very active, it was natural that they should have had some interests in common.  But there had been no private walkings, and no talkings that could properly be called private.  There was a certain book which Fanny kept, containing the names of all the poor people in the parish, to which Mr. Saul had access equally with herself; but its contents were of a most prosaic nature, and when she had sat over it in the rectory drawing-room, with Mr. Saul by her side, striving to extract more than twelve pennies out of charity shillings, she had never thought that it would lead to a declaration of love.

He had never called her Fanny in his life—­not up to the moment when she declined the honor of becoming Mrs. Saul.  The offer itself was made in this wise.  She had been at the house of old Widow Tubb, half-way between Cumberly Green and the little village of Clavering, striving to make that rheumatic old woman believe that she had not been cheated by a general conspiracy of the parish in the matter of a distribution of coal, when, just as she was about to leave the cottage, Mr. Saul came up.  It was then past four, and the evening was becoming dark, and there was, moreover, a slight drizzle of rain.  It was not a tempting evening for a walk of a mile and a half through a very dirty lane; but Fanny Clavering did not care much for such things, and was just stepping out into the mud and moisture, with her dress well looped up, when Mr. Saul accosted her.

“I’m afraid you’ll be very wet, Miss Clavering.”

“That will be better than going without my cup of tea, Mr. Saul, which I should have to do if I stayed any longer with Mrs. Tubb.  And I have got an umbrella.”

“But it is so dark and dirty,” said he.

“I’m used to that, as you ought to know.”