Unconsciously to herself, Margie's ideas of a husband were shaping themselves on a certain mould, and it never struck her that she was exactly describing Cornelius Maynard, perhaps not as he was in reality, but as she imagined him to be.

"Well, my dear child, I hope you will find the right man some day; but whoever he is, take my word for it, Margie, no love in the world is worth having which is not that of a high-minded and a true man—a man, I mean, who has a purpose and aim in his life, and who lives for something beyond his own pleasure. There, you will say I have given you a sermon," she said, good-humouredly, "and you must forgive me and show you do not bear me malice by coming to see me again before very long."

Certainly I will come very soon, dear Mrs. Connor," said Margie warmly; "and I hope you will come and see us and get to know Essie too, for I am sure you will like her."

The girl walked home, musing over Mrs. Connor's parting words, and wondering too, a little, if the right man would come some day, and if he would be all that she dreamed.

She found Essie in the garden, employed in feeding the pigeons, whose supper-time Margie had forgotten.

"Oh, Margie," she began, "I am so sorry you were out. Mr. Maynard has been here and brought you a lovely jay's wing, to wear in your hat, he said. He shot the bird himself and thought you might like it. And he was very anxious to hear how you had survived the wetting you got the other day."

"How tiresome!" said Margie, stamping her foot on the ground with a petulant gesture. "This is the only day in the week I have been out at this hour. And he wasn't in church on Sunday, so I thought he must be away. Well, it can't be helped; and after all, I have had a very nice walk, and have made a new friend. Guess, Essie, who do you think it is?"

"I can't guess, I am sure," said Essie; "you make so many, and they are such very different people. One day it is the Wyndover chimneysweep, the next it is Mr. Maynard. Perhaps it is Miss Fairbairn this time."

"Not quite," said Margie, laughing merrily at the notion. "But it is nearly as wonderful. You will never guess, Essie, so you may as well give it up at once. It is Aunt Prue's friend, Mrs. Connor."

"Oh, is that all?" said Essie, who had expected something more startling. "I am glad it is no one more extraordinary. And I told you the other day I thought she looked nice and kind.".

"She is very nice and very kind, too," returned Margie. "And she doesn't preach, which is a mercy. At least," she said, correcting herself, “not in an unpleasant way. But tell me, how did you like Mr. Maynard? I was forgetting you had never seen him before. Isn't he tall and nice-looking?"

"He is very tall, certainly," said Essie, "and I suppose people would call him good-looking. But that did not strike me particularly," she added, in her conscientiously exact truthfulness. "You know I never care much what people's faces are like if they seem pleasant and good."

"He is very good-looking," pronounced Margie, with that happy reliance on her own opinion which seldom failed her. "And what else did he talk about?"

"Oh, nothing very much, that I can remember," said Essie, trying to recall the incidents of the young farmer's visit. "Father came in at tea-time, and he stayed some time talking to him in the yard, and saw the waggon."

"I am glad of that," said Margie. "But it was unlucky that I should just miss him. He amuses me, and I want to know what Miss Fairbairn said the other day, and if she ever found out I had been in her house and had worn the velvet riding suit! And now, show me the jay's wing, which I am longing to see."

CHAPTER IX.

"Gather ye roses while ye may,

Old time is still a-flying;

And the same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he's a-getting

The sooner will his race be run

And nearer he's to setting."

ROBERT HERRICK.

HE vicar had returned to King's Marden after an absence of some weeks. The attack of illness which had driven

him to Bath had not, as Mrs. Plaskitt

ominously foretold, ended fatally, and if his fingers were knotted with gout, and the one luxury in which he indulged—a glass of port wine at dessert

-was forbidden him, he could hobble about the parish with the help of a walking-stick, and had lost none of his habitual cheerfulness.

He had only been back two days, and already he had been to see his schoolmaster, whom he looked

on as his right hand man in the place; he had paid his respects to the Trudgeon family, and had inquired in person at the Manor-house after Miss Fairbairn's health.

The satisfaction of the parishioners at his return was universal. Every one in the village, whether church people or dissenters, rejoiced to see the well-known figure moving in and cut among them again, and to hear the cheery voice asking after the little ones at home.

But greater still was the satisfaction, especially among the younger members of the community, when it was announced that the vicar intended to give his harvest-home entertainment, although it was already getting late in the year.

Now, the harvest-home had been for many years the great holiday of the year in King's Marden. It was a festival talked of and looked forward to for months beforehand, and when it was over it left pleasant memories to become the subject of talk and laughter in the long winter evenings.

The vicar himself encouraged this feeling, and had a special liking for the day on his own account.

In the first place, the celebration of this festival of gathering in the fruits of (the earth had a flavour of antiquity. Its origin dated back to classical times, to the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, and patriarchal days.