“Not to me,” he replied, quietly—­“But then I’m no judge.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“She is considered the most beautiful woman in England!”

“By whom?”, he enquired;—­“By the society paragraphists who are paid for their compliments?”

Maryllia laughed.

“Oh, I don’t know anything about that!” she said—­“I never met a paragraphist in my life that I know of.  But Eva is beautiful—­there is no denying it.  And Margaret Bludlip Courtenay is called the youngest woman in the world!”

“She looks it!” answered Walden, with great heartiness.  “I cannot imagine Time making any sort of mark upon her.  Because—­if you don’t mind my saying so—­she has really nothing for Time to write upon!”

His tone was eminently good-natured, and Maryllia glancing at his smiling face laughed gaily.

“You are very wicked, Mr. Walden,” she said mirthfully—­“In fact, you are a quiz, and you shouldn’t be a quiz and a clergyman both together.  Oh, by the way!  Why did you stop reading the service when we all came in late to church that Sunday?”

He looked full at her.

“Precisely for that reason.  Because you all came in late.”

Maryllia peered timorously at him, with her pretty head on one side, like an enquiring bird.

“Do you think it was polite?”

Walden laughed.

“I was not studying politeness just then,”—­he answered—­“I was exercising my own authority.”

“Oh!” She paused.  “Lady Beaulyon and the others did not like it at all.  They thought you were trying to make us ashamed of ourselves.”

“They were right,”—­he said, cheerfully—­“I was!”

“Well,—­you succeeded,—­in a way.  But I was angry!”

He smiled.

“Were you, really?  How dreadful!  But you got over it?”

“Yes,”—­she said, meditatively—­“I got over it.  I suppose you were right,—­and of course we were wrong.  But aren’t you a very arbitrary person?”

His eyes sparkled mirthfully.

“I believe I am.  But I never ask anyone to attend church,—­everyone in the parish is free to do as they like about that.  Only if people do come, I expect them to be punctual,—­that’s all.”

“I see!  And if they’re not, you make them feel very small and cheap about it.  People don’t like being made small and cheap,—­I don’t, for instance.  Now good-bye!  You are coming to dine next week, remember!”

“I remember!” he rejoined, as he raised his hat in farewell.  “And do you think you will learn Greek?”

“I am sure I will!—­as soon as ever all these people are gone.  The week after next I shall be quite free again.”

“And happy?”

She hesitated.

“Not quite, perhaps, but as happy as I ever can be!  Good-bye!”

She held out her hand.  He pressed it gently, and let her go, watching her as she moved along the road holding up her dainty skirt from the dust, and walking with the ease and graceful carriage which was, to her, second nature.  Then he went into his own garden with the Iliad, and addressing his ever attentive and complaisant dog, said: