“I postponed my visit to Applegate until to-morrow,” he said, when he had given her what he thought was sufficient time to recover her composure.  “If you are returning shortly, perhaps I may have the pleasure of driving you in my gig.  I have just come to inquire after Mrs. Hatch.”

“It would be kind of you, for I am a little tired,” responded Molly.  “I came to speak to Judy, and then I am to stop at the mill to borrow a pattern from Blossom Revercomb.  Are you going that way, I wonder?”

“I shall make it my way,” he replied gallantly, “as soon as you are ready.  Don’t hurry, I beg of you.  It is gratifying to me to find that you have so soon taken my advice and devoted a portion of your days to visiting the sick and the afflicted.”

With her back discreetly turned upon Judy, she looked up at him for a moment, and something in her eyes rendered unnecessary the words that fell slowly and softly from her lips.

“You give such good advice, Mr. Mullen.”

A boyish eagerness showed in his face, breaking through the professional austerity of his manner.

“I hope you’ve advised Judy this morning,” she added before he could answer.

“To the best of my ability,” he replied gravely.  “And now, as I have said before, there is no hurry, but if you are quite ready, I should suggest our starting.”

“Just a word or two with Judy,” she answered, and when the words were spoken in the doorway she laid her hand in the rector’s and mounted, with his scrupulous assistance, over the red wheel to the shining black seat of the gig, which smelt of leather and varnish.  After he had taken his place beside her he tucked in the laprobe carefully at the corners, rearranged the position of his overcoat at her back, and suggested that she should put the bottle of cough syrup in the bottom of the vehicle.

Like all his attentions, this solicitude about the cough syrup had an air that was at once amorous and ministerial, a manner of implying, “Observe how I take possession of you always to your advantage.”

“Are you quite comfortable?” he asked when they had rolled between the stunted rose-bushes into the turnpike.

“Oh, perfectly, you are always so thoughtful, Mr. Mullen.”

“I think I am right in ranking thoughtfulness—­or consideration, I should have said—­among the virtues.”

“Indeed you are; as soon as I found that you had not gone to Applegate as you intended to, I said to myself that, of course, some act of kindness had detained you.”

His large, very round grey eyes grew soft as he looked at her.

“You have expressed it beautifully, as ‘an act of kindness,’” he returned, “since you yourself were the cause of my postponing my visit.”

“I—­oh, you can’t mean it?  What have I done?”

“Nothing.  Don’t alarm yourself—­absolutely nothing.  Three months ago when I spoke to you of marriage, you entreated me to allow you a little time in which to accustom yourself to my proposal.  That time of probation, which has been, I hope, equally trying to us both, has ended to-day.”