Lovers, like sinners, are nearly always found out; and in a very short time everybody knew that Nelly Channell was engaged. It is not worth while to record all the remarks that this affair drew forth. They were comments of the usual kind; the curate was called a schemer, and the father was said to have cruelly neglected the interests of his child. But as none of these observations reached the ears of those whom they chiefly concerned, nobody was any the worse for them.

Meanwhile, Morgan took his good fortune in a very tranquil way. He saw Nelly nearly every day, and she did most of the talking that went on between them. Her conversation, like herself, was always simple and bright; it did not weary the listener, and yet it sometimes set[125] him wondering at the ease with which she opened her heart, and let out its inmost thoughts. He was conscious that he had never let her get beyond the vestibule of his inner self; but he would fain have had it otherwise. It pained him, even while it comforted him, to see that she was quite unaware of his involuntary reserve. Had she known that he kept any locked-up chambers, she would have striven to find the keys, and would most likely have succeeded. But she did not know it. She possessed no instinct keen enough to tell her that she might live with this man for years without once getting close to his soul.

“Read this, Nelly,” he said, one February afternoon. He had called to take her out walking, and they were standing together at the drawing-room window. All the snow was gone, and in its stead there were clusters of snowdrops scattered over the brown mould. Here and there was a group of the golden-eyed polyanthus; a little yellow-hammer, perched on the garden-wall, piped its small, sweet song.[126] There was sunlight out of doors, and Nelly, looking bright and picturesque in her velvet and sable, was impatient to leave the house.

Morgan had taken a copy of the Monthly Guest from his pocket and was pointing to a little poem on one of its pages.

“I can read it when we have had our walk,” Nelly answered. Then catching a slight shade of disappointment on his face, she gave her whole attention to the verses at once.

“How pretty!” she said, having conscientiously travelled through the thirty lines. “How strange it seems that some people should have the power of putting their ideas into rhyme! The writer has a nice name,—Eve Hazleburn.”

“Perhaps it is merely a nom-de-plume,” replied Morgan, returning the journal to his pocket.

Nelly thought within herself that she had never found her lover a pleasanter companion than he was that day. He amused her with little stories of his college life, and even went[127] back to his grammar-school days in search of incidents. It was a delightful walk; twilight was creeping on when they found themselves at the house-door again, but Morgan came no farther than the threshold.

“No, thank you,” he said; “I cannot dine with you to-night; I must go home and write letters. Good-night, Nelly dear.”

He went his way through the leafless lanes, past the cottages and gardens, to the old sexton’s ivy-covered dwelling. Then he lifted the latch and went straight to the little parlour that had been given up to his use. It was a very small room, so low that the beam across the ceiling was blackened and blistered by the heat from the curate’s reading lamp. Six rush-bottomed chairs stood with their backs against the wall, and a carpet-covered hassock was the sole pretension to luxury that the apartment contained. But a cheerful fire was blazing in the grate, and on a little red tray stood a homely black teapot.

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