While the curate spoke, I had seen Adela's face flush; but the cause was not visible to me. As he uttered the last words, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and Harry's voice said:
"At your parables again, Ralph?"
He had come in so gently that the only sign of his entrance had been the rose-light on Adela's cheeks.—Was he the sun? And was she a cloud of the east?
"Glad to see you safe amongst us again," said the colonel, backed by almost every one of the company.
"What's your quarrel with my parables, Harry?" said the curate.
"Quarrel? None at all. They are the delight of my heart. I only wish you would give our friends one of your best—The Castle, for instance."
"Not yet a while, Harry. It is not my turn for some time, I hope. Perhaps Miss Cathcart will be tired of the whole affair, before it comes round to me again."
"Then I shall deserve to be starved of stories all the rest of my life," answered Adela, laughing.
"If you will allow me, then," said Harry, "I will give you a parable, called The Lost Church, from the German poet, Uhland."
"Softly, Harry," said his brother; "you are ready enough with what is not yours to give; but where is your own story that you promised, and which indeed we should have a right to demand, whether you had promised it or not?"