She smiled up at him,—­and as his glance met hers he was taken aback, as it were, by the pellucid beauty and frank innocence of the grave dark-blue eyes that shone so serenely into his own.

“Thank you so very, very much!  You have been most kind!” and with a swift droop of her white eyelids she veiled those seductive ’mirrors of the soul’ beneath a concealing fringe of long golden-brown lashes—­“It’s quite a new experience to find a clergyman able and willing to be a telegraph clerk as well!  So useful, isn’t it?”

“In a village like this it is,” rejoined Walden, gaily—­“And after all, there’s not much use in being a minister unless one can practically succeed in the art of ‘ministering’ to every sort of demand made upon one’s capabilities!  Even to Miss Vancourt’s needs, should she require anything, from the preservation of trees to the sending of telegrams, that St. Rest can provide!”

Again Maryllia glanced at him, and again a little smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

“I must pay for the telegrams,” she said abruptly—­“Mrs. Tapple—–­”

“Yes, Miss—­I’ve written it all down,” murmured Mrs. Tapple nervously—­“It’s right, Mr. Walden, isn’t it?  If you would be so good as to look at it, bein’ tuppence a word, it do make it different like, an’ m’appen there might be a mistake—–­”

Walden glanced over the scrap of paper on which she had scrawled her rough figures.

“Fivepence out, I declare, Mrs. Tapple!” he said, merrily.  “Dear, dear!  Whatever is going to become of you, eh?  To cheat yourself wouldn’t matter—­nobody minds that—­but to do the British Government out of fivepence would be a dreadful thing!  Now if I had not seen this you would have been what is called ‘short’ this evening in making up accounts.”  Here he handed the corrected paper to Maryllia.  “I think you will find that right.”

Maryllia opened her purse and paid the amount,—­and Mrs. Tapple, in giving her change for a sovereign, included among the coins a bright new threepenny piece with a hole in it.  Spying this little bit of silver, Maryllia held it up in front of Walden’s eyes triumphantly.

“Luck!” she exclaimed—­“That’s for you!  It’s a reward for your telegraphic operations!  Will you be grateful if I give it to you?”

He laughed.

“Profoundly!  It shall be my D.S.O.!”

“Then there you are!” and she placed the tiny coin in the palm of the hand he held out to receive it.  “The labourer is worthy of his hire!  Now you can never go about like some clergymen, grumbling and saying you work for no pay!” Her eyes sparkled mischievously.  “What shall we do next?  Oh, I know!  Let’s buy some acid drops!”

Mrs. Tapple stared and smiled.

“Or pear-drops,” continued Maryllia, glancing critically at the various jars of ’sweeties,’—­“I see the real old-fashioned pink ones up there,—­lumpy at one end and tapering at the other.  Do you like them?  Or brandy balls?  I think the pear-drops carry one back to the age of ten most quickly!  But which do you prefer?”