to have remembered him so distinctly—oh, I am so ashamed of myself!”

“I don’t think you need to be. I think it was perfectly natural,” said Mary.

“Oh, yes, in one way, I know it was. I am not really ashamed of myself, I did nothing wrong. It is what those people must have thought of me,” said Lilias.

“I wish you would not care what people think of you,” answered Mary. “What does it matter? We shall probably never see any of them again. How pretty the girl was! By-the-bye, Captain Beverley’s name is Arthur, he may be a descendant of ‘Mawde’ in the tablet, Lilias. Her name was Beverley, and her father’s ‘Arthur.’ Very likely one of her sons would be called after her father. I wonder if that has anything to do with their coming here,” she went on, growing more interested in Captain Beverley than she had hitherto appeared.

“How do you mean?” asked Lilias.

“Why, supposing he is a great grandson, a great, great, great grandson—oh, more than that—there has been time for six or seven generations—supposing he is a descendant of Mawde’s, he may have something to do with this neighbourhood, and that may have brought him here.”

“We should have heard of him before this,” objected Lilias. “Papa knows every land-owner of any consequence in the country by name, and I never heard of any one called Beverley.”

“Here is papa,” said Mary, looking back just as Mr Western emerged from the church, where he had been detained later than usual by some little official discussion, “let us wait for him and ask him. Papa,” she continued, as her father came up to them, “do you know that one of those gentlemen who came to church is called Beverley?”

“And Mary is making up quite a romance about his being descended from the old woman on the tablet,” said Lilias, laughing, but yet not without interest. “There are no people of the name hereabouts now?”

“Beverley,” repeated Mr Western, “how do you know that is his name?”

The girls explained.

“No, there are no gentle-people of that name hereabouts nowadays,” said Mr Western. “The old Hathercourt Beverleys have quite died out, except, by-the-bye,—I was told the other day that old John Birley, who died at Hathercourt Edge last year, was a lineal descendant of theirs.”

“That rough old farmer!” exclaimed Mary, her thoughts flying back to “Mawde.”

“Yes, you remember him? It was Greville, I think, that was telling me about it. The name ‘Birley’ he said was only a corruption of Beverley. The old man was very proud of his descent. He left the farm and what money he had saved to a Mr Beverley, whom he believed to be of the same family—no one in this neighbourhood. By-the-bye, that may be the young man you are telling me about, Mary, which was he—the fair or the dark one?”

“The fair one,” replied Mary, “the other was a Mr Cheviott.”

“Cheviott—ah, indeed,” said Mr Western, with a tone of faintly discernible satisfaction. “I fancy that must be Mr Cheviott of Romary. You remember Romary, girls, that beautiful old place near Withenden. We went there picnicking once, several years ago.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Lilias, “but I thought the people living there were called Romary, not Cheviott.”

“Well, this Mr Cheviott was a nephew or grandson—all the male Romarys had died out, I suppose,” said Mr Western.

They were at the Rectory door by this time. An unmistakable odour of roast mutton greeted them as it opened.

“It must be dinner-time,” said Lilias, going in. “Dear me,” she added to herself, as she slowly made her way up-stairs to the plainly furnished but neat little bedroom that she shared with her sister, “dear me, how nice it would be to be rich, and have nice pretty luncheons instead of these terrible early dinners, so hot and fussy, and all the children crowding round the table! Dear me—”

But she took off her bonnet and shawl and went down with a cheerful face to help in the distribution of the roast mutton, bright and merry and very fair to look upon, as was her wont.

Mary had waited a moment at the hall door with her father. They stood looking out at the autumn landscape; there came a sudden gleam of sunshine through the trees, lighting up the grass with a yellow radiance, and lingering gently on the many-coloured stones of the venerable church.

“It’s a nice old place, after all, child, is it not?” said Mr Western.

“Yes, indeed, father,” replied the girl.

“I, for my part, am very content to think that I shall spend my life here, and rest peacefully over there in the shadow of my old church, when the time comes,” continued the Rector; “but for you young people I suppose it’s different somehow,” and he sighed a little.

“How do you mean, father dear?” said Mary, softly, and she came closer to him and slid her hand into his arm. “What makes you speak that way to-day?”

“I don’t exactly know, my dear,” he replied. “Possibly the sight of those strangers in church set me considering things. I should like you girls to have a few more—well, advantages I suppose they are in a sense, after all—I should like to see Lilias and you as nicely dressed as that pretty girl this morning, eh, Mary?”

“Dear father?” said Mary, affectionately. “But we’re very happy, papa. I am, at least, and Lilias tries to be anyway. But I dare say it’s harder for her than for me—she might get so very much admiration, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

Mr Western smiled—there were people in the world, he thought to himself, who would see something to admire in the eager face beside him too; but he said nothing, and just then the dinner-bell rang, and a hurry of approaching footsteps told that to some at least of the Rectory party it was not an unwelcome sound. Mary fled up-stairs, her father followed the hungry flock into the dining-room. And the Sunday meal that day was considerably enlivened by discussions about the mysterious strangers. Who were they?—whence had they come, and wherefore?—and, “Will they come again next Sunday?” said little Frances, a question which her eldest sister very summarily answered in the negative.

“They have given you all something to talk about, children, anyway,” said Mrs Western.

“Yes,” said Basil, who, on the strength of having left school three months ago, considered himself a man of the world, “it’s ridiculous how people get excited about nothing at all, when they live such shut-up lives. I bet you the whole neighbourhood’s full of it. All the old women will be discussing these unfortunate people over their tea-tables at this very moment.”

“Not over their tea, Basil,” said little Brooke. “They don’t have tea till four o’clock.”