They would gladly have induced her to take up her abode with them during her mother's absence, but to that she would by no means consent; home was home after all, and though it might be pleasant to spend a part of the day elsewhere, when night came she wanted to be in her own familiar room, with old Vashti within call.
On Sunday Marian always attended service in the little country church spoken of in a former chapter.
The neighborhood was a very quiet one, few coming or going, the same faces showing themselves in the sanctuary Sunday after Sunday, and the sight of a new one was always a source of no little interest; it may therefore be supposed that the advent among them, a week after Mrs. Clendenin set out on her journey, of a fine looking young man, a total stranger, well dressed, and of serious and gentlemanly deportment, created some little stir and excitement; especially among the younger portion of the congregation.
He sat in the pew of Mr. George Grimes, who kept the nearest inn, the sign of the Stag and Hounds, and the services had not been over many minutes before every one knew that he had engaged board there for a month, and that he was an Englishman, apparently wealthy, having brought a valet with him.
The congregation had passed out into the churchyard, and a subdued hum of voices exchanging neighborly greetings and inquiries after each other's health, mingled pleasantly with the twittering of birds, the sighing of the wind through the forest, and the low murmur of the stream on the farther side of the road.
The stranger stood aside, looking on and listening with a well bred air of kindly interest.
"Who is that, Grimes?" he asked, his eye following admiringly a graceful girlish figure as it tripped past them down the path that led out to the road where the horses were tied, and, with the assistance of one of the young men, who stepped eagerly forward to give it, sprang lightly into the saddle.
"Miss Marian Clendenin, of Glen Forest, Mr. Lyttleton: one of the prettiest young ladies in the county, if I'm a judge o' beauty," replied Grimes, lifting his hat to the fair girl.
"She sits her horse well," remarked the stranger, still following her with his eyes as she cantered away in the direction of her home, Caius bounding nimbly on by the pony's side. "But she seems quite alone, is there no more of the family?"
"Most of 'em lie yonder," replied Grimes, pointing to a row of graves not far from the spot where they stood. "Children all died young but this girl and an older brother who went West years ago. Father died within the last year, and the mother's away nursing a sick sister, I hear."