Then Mr. Cope goes to the porch and looks out.  He sees two men getting over the stile.  One is a small slight person, in very good black clothes, not at all as if they were meant to ape a gentleman, and therefore thoroughly respectable.  He has a thin face, rather pointed as to the chin and nose, and the eyes dark and keen, so that it would be over-sharp but that the mouth looks so gentle and subdued, and the whole countenance is grave and thoughtful.  You could not feel half so sure that he is a certificated school-master, as you can that his very brisk-looking companion is so.

‘Good morning, Mr. Brown.—­Good morning, Paul,’ said Mr. Cope.  ’I did not expect to see you arrive in this way.’

The grave face glitters up in a merry look of amusement, while, with a little colouring, he answers: 

’Why, Sir, Matilda said it was the proper thing, and so we supposed she knew best.’

There are not so many people who do talk of Paul now.  Most people know him as Mr. Blackthorn, late school-master at Berryton, where the boys liked him for his bright and gentle yet very firm ways; the parents, for getting their children on, and helping them to be steady; and the clergyman, for being so perfectly to be trusted, so anxious to do right, and, while efficient and well informed, perfectly humble and free from conceit.  Now he has just got an appointment to Hazleford school, in another diocese, with a salary of fifty pounds a year; but, as Charles Hayward would tell you, ’he hasn’t got one bit of pride, no more than when he lived up in the hay-loft.’

There is not long to wait.  There is another party getting over the stile.  There is a very fine tall youth first.  As Betsey Hardman tells her mother, ’she never saw such a one for being fine-growed and stately to look at, since poor Charles King when he wore his best wig.’  A very nice open honest face, and as merry a pair of blue eyes as any in the parish, does Harold wear, nearly enough to tell you that, if in these six years it would be too much to say he has never done anything to vex his mother, yet in the main his heart is in the right place—­he is a very good son, very tender to her, and steady and right-minded.

Whom is he helping over the stile?  Oh, that is Mrs. Mowbray’s pretty little maid! a very good young thing, whom she has read with and taught; and here, lady-like and delicate-looking as ever, is Matilda.  Bridemaids before the bride! that’s quite wrong; but the bride has a shy fit, and would not get over first, and Matilda and Harold are, the one encouraging her, the other laughing at her; and Mr. Blackthorn turns very red, and goes down the path to meet her, and she takes his arm, and Harold takes Lucy, and Mr. Brown Miss King.

Very nice that bride looks, with her hair so glossy under her straw bonnet trimmed with white, her pretty white shawl, and quiet purple silk dress, her face rather flushed, but quiet-looking, as if she were growing more like her mother, with something of her sense and calmness.