When he had bidden farewell to the Warings in his porch and watched them curiously till a clump of firs hid them from him, Mr. Fellowes went back to his study with a very curious assortment of expressions on his face; there was a good deal of amusement there, a decided touch of sadness, much doubt, and some dismay.

He had, however, little time to reduce this confusion to order; an impatient tap at the door was followed by the entrance of a bright eager little woman, in a long trailing garment of a curious combination of heliotrope and pale yellow.

“John, are you ready for me? May I hear all of it?” she demanded, putting her little hand on his big ones.

“I feel in rather a yeasty condition at this minute, but I’ll subside shortly, no doubt. Will you be able to hold out a little longer?”

“Haven’t I borne it for two mortal hours and twenty minutes? Were they talking all the time? I was in an awful fright it was something I mustn’t hear. Two scientists in trouble about their souls, perhaps?”

“Fortunately I can divulge all I know, but you needn’t be flippant. It’s all very funny, but it’s just as woefully sad. What on earth are you at?”

“Pinning up my skirts, the fire would ruin this colour in a night. Do you like my gown?”

“I do, but whether the parish will, is another question.”

“Oh, never mind the parish, I’ll teach it; you have no idea how easy it is to get round people if you know the track. Is that yeast risen high enough or has it gone sad? Remember I have held out a frightful time.”

“Hold out another five minutes while I write a note, I must catch this post.”

When Mr. Fellowes brought his little seventeen-years old wife home to the respectable parish of Waring, just four years before this time, it was the generally received opinion of most competent judges that he had a good deal to answer for.

To begin with, she was American, that fact in itself was quite without precedent. The entire clerical annals of the diocese did not furnish a like example. This, to any right-minded judgment, was as much as an insult to the parishioners, who were in consequence put to much trouble and inconvenience in rubbing up their imaginations to tackle the case, having no previous experience to go upon.

A deceased Colonel, of whom they knew a great deal too much, and a living peer, of whom on the contrary, they knew a great deal too little, both inhabitants of the county, had indeed married Americans, the results in the one case being disastrous; of the other they possessed no proven data, but they were at least at liberty to draw their own conclusions.

But for a parson to do this thing! It was unheard-of, and partook of the nature of a scandal.

Then Mrs. Fellowes was pretty and gay, and it must be confessed chic.

They could have put up with the prettiness and even the brightness,—they were used to certain varieties of both these things in their own girls,—but the chicness!—that was the quality their souls struck against, it seemed expressly to have been sent by Satan himself “to buffet them withal”. And the girl’s dress for a clergyman’s wife, was simply audacious! And yet when a large and representative female conclave had met and dissected her “things” over half a dozen teas, they were forced to the conclusion that she had not a complex or expensive article in her whole wardrobe.

“So much the worse,” Lady Mary, the leader of the parish ton, remarked, and with some reason too, “it shows that it is not the clothes that stamp the girl, it is the girl who stamps the clothes. There is something fundamentally wrong there.”

This being put in the form of an axiom spread widely, and carried much weight.

This was four years ago, however, and things had changed a good deal. Mrs. Fellowes’ husband was no fool, he knew what he was about when he brought home, as the finish to the one long holiday of his life, the little New England girl to be his helpmate.