tea drawing too long and all because of her.  There was tremendous etiquette in the Eustace family.  Not a cup of tea would Aunt Harriet pour, not a spoon would Aunt Jane dip into the preserves, not a butter ball would her grandmother impale upon the little silver fork.  And poor Hannah, the maid, white aproned and capped, would stand behind Aunt Harriet like a miserable conscious graven image.  Therefore Annie ran, and ran, and it happened that she ran rather heedlessly and blindly and dropped her mussy little package of fancy work, and Karl von Rosen, coming out of the parsonage, saw it fall and picked it up rather gingerly, and called as loudly as was decorous after the flying figure, but Annie did not hear and Von Rosen did not want to shout, neither did he want, or rather think it advisable, to run, therefore he followed holding the linen package well away from him, as if it were a disagreeable insect.  He had never seen much of Annie Eustace.  Now and then he called upon one of her aunts, who avowed her preference for his religious denomination, but if he saw Annie at all, she was seated engaged upon some such doubtfully ornamental or useful task, as the specimen which he now carried.  Truth to say, he had scarcely noticed Annie Eustace at all.  She had produced the effect of shrinking from observation under some subtle shadow of self-effacement.  She was in reality a very rose of a girl, loving and sweet, and withal wonderfully endowed; but this human rose, dwelt always for Karl von Rosen, in the densest of bowers through which her beauty and fragrance of character could not penetrate his senses.  Undoubtedly also, although his masculine intelligence would have scouted the possibility of such a thing, Annie’s dull, ill-made garb served to isolate her.  She also never came to church.  That perfect little face with its expression of strange insight, must have aroused his attention among his audience.  But there was only the Aunt Harriet Eustace, an exceedingly thin lady, present and always attired in rich blacks.  Karl von Rosen to-day walking as rapidly as became his dignity, in pursuit of the young woman, was aware that he hardly felt at liberty to accost her with anything more than the greeting of the day.  He eyed disapprovingly the parcel which he carried.  It was a very dingy white, and greyish threads dangled from it.  Von Rosen thought it a most unpleasant thing, and reflected with mild scorn and bewilderment concerning the manner of mind which could find amusement over such employment, for he divined that it was a specimen of feminine skill, called fancy work.

Annie Eustace ran so swiftly with those long agile legs of hers that he soon perceived that interception upon her return, and not overtaking, must ensue.  He did not gain upon her at all, and he began to understand that he was making himself ridiculous to possible observers in windows.  He therefore slackened his pace, and met Annie upon her return.  She had a letter in her hand and was advancing with a headlong rush, and suddenly she attracted him.  He surrendered the parcel.  “Thank you very much,” said Annie, “but I almost wish you had not found it.”