“What an evening it is!” rapturously exclaimed Hubert.

“Ay:  so calm and peaceful.”

The rays of the setting sun touched Hubert’s face, lighting up its extreme delicacy; the scent of the closing flowers filled the still air with its sweetness; the birds were chanting their evening song of praise.  Hubert, his elbow on the arm of the bench, his hand supporting his chin, looked out with dreamy eyes.

“What book have you there?” asked Mr. Grame, noticing one in his other hand.

“Herbert,” answered the young man, showing it.  “I filched it from your table through the open window, Grame.”

The clergyman took it.  It chanced to open at a passage he was very fond of.  Or perhaps he knew the place, and opened it purposely.

“Do you know these verses, Hubert?  They are appropriate enough just now, while those birds are carolling.”

“I can’t tell.  What verses?  Read them.”

“Hark, how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring! 
All creatures have their joy, and man hath his,
Yet, if we rightly measure,
Man’s joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter than in present is.

Not that we may not here
Taste of the cheer;
But as birds drink and straight lift up the head,
So must he sip and think
Of better drink
He may attain to after he is dead.”

“Ay,” said Hubert, breaking the silence after a time, “it’s very true, I suppose.  But this world—­oh, it’s worth living for.  Will anything in the next, Grame, be more beautiful than that?”

He was pointing to the sunset.  It was marvellously and unusually beautiful.  Lovely pink and crimson clouds flecked the west; in their midst shone a golden light of dazzling refulgence, too glorious to look upon.

“One might fancy it the portals of heaven,” said the clergyman; “the golden gate of entrance, leading to the pearly gates within, and to the glittering walls of precious stones.”

“And—­why! it seems to take the form of an entrance-gate!” exclaimed Hubert in excitement.  For it really did.  “Look at it!  Oh, Grame, surely, surely the very gate of Heaven cannot be more dazzlingly beautiful than that!”

“And if the gate of entrance is so unspeakably beautiful, what will the City itself be?” murmured Mr. Grame.  “The Heavenly City! the New Jerusalem!”

“It is beginning to fade,” said Hubert presently, as they sat watching; “the brightness is going.  What a pity!”

“All that’s bright must fade in this world, you know; and fade very quickly.  Hubert! it will not in the next.”

* * * * *

Church Leet, watching its neighbours’ doings sharply, began to whisper that the new clergyman, Mr. Grame, was likely to cause unpleasantness to the Monk family, just as some of his predecessors had caused it.  For no man having eyes in his head (still less any woman) could fail to see that the Captain’s imperious daughter had fallen desperately in love with him.  Would there be a second elopement, as in the days of Tom Dancox?  Would Eliza Monk set her father at defiance, as Katherine did?