Bishop Brent, Walden’s old college friend, came to perform the ceremony of consecration, and this was the first time the inhabitants of St. Rest had seen a real Bishop for many years.  Much excitement did his presence create in that quiet woodland dell, the more especially as he proved to be a Bishop somewhat out of the common.  Tall and attenuated in form, he had a face which might almost be called magnetic, so alive was its expression,—­so intense and passionate was the light of the deep dark melancholy eyes that burned from under their shelving brows like lamps set in a high watch-tower of intellect.  When he preached, his voice, with its deep mellow cadence, thrilled very strangely to the heart,—­and every gesture, every turn of his head, expressed the activity of the keen soul pent up within his apparently frail body.  The sermon he gave on the occasion of the re-dedication of the Church of St. Rest was powerful and emotional, but scarcely orthodox—­and therefore was not altogether pleasing to Sir Morton Pippitt.  He chose as his text:  “Behold I show you a mystery; we shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed;” and on this he expatiated, setting forth the joys of the spiritual life as opposed to the physical,—­insisting on the positive certainty of individual existence after death, and weaving into his discourse some remarks on the encoffined saint whose sarcophagus had been unearthed from its long-hidden burial-place and set again where it had originally stood, in the middle of the chancel.  He spoke in hushed and solemn tones of the possibility of the holy spirit of that unknown one being present among them that day, helping them in their work, joining in their prayers of consecration and perhaps bestowing upon them additional blessing.  At which statement, given with poetic earnestness and fervour, Sir Morton stared, breathed hard and murmured in his daughter’s ear “A Roman!  The man is a Roman!”

But notwithstanding Sir Morton Pippitt’s distaste for the manner in which the Bishop dealt with his subject, and his numerous allusions to saints in heaven and their probable guardianship of their friends on earth, the sermon was a deeply impressive one and lingered long in the memories of those who had heard it, softening their hearts, inspiring their for the news of her coming.  It is the one cloud in an otherwise clear sky!

The young moon swinging lazily downward to the west, looked upon him as though she smiled.  A little bat scurried past in fear and hurled itself into the dewy masses of foliage bordering the edge of the lawn.  And from the reeds and sedges fringing the river beyond, there came floating a long whispering murmur that swept past his ears and died softly into space, as of a voice that had something strange and new to say, which might not yet be said.  Sir Morton only served to give piquancy and savour to the quiet round of his daily habits.  Now, all unexpectedly, there was to be a break,—­a new source of unavoidable