"Now, Mrs. Eccles, you know perfectly well all the seats are free in the evening."
"And so they may be, Miss Ruth, my dear—and don't ye be a-getting up yet—and good Christians, I'm sure, the quality are to abide it. And it did my heart good to hear the Honorable John preaching as he did in his new surplice (as Widder Pegg always puts too much blue in the surplices to my thinking), all about rich and poor, and one with another. A beautiful sermon it was; but I wouldn't come up like they Harrises. There's things as is suitable, and there's things as is not. No, I keep to my own place; and I had to turn out old Bessie Pugh this very last Sunday night, as I found a-cocked up there, tho' I was not a matter of five minutes late. Bessie Pugh always was one to take upon herself, and, as I often says to her, when I hear her a-goin' on about free grace and the like, 'Bessie,' I says, 'if I was a widder on the parish, and not so much as a pig to fat up for Christmas, and coming to church reg'lar on Loaf Sunday, which it's not that I ain't sorry for ye, but I wouldn't take upon myself, if I was you, to talk of things as I'd better leave to them as is beholden to nobody and pays their rent reg'lar. I've no patience—But eh, dear Miss Ruth! look at that gentleman going down the road, and the dog too. Why, ye haven't so much as got up! He's gone. He was a foreigner, and no mistake. Why, good Lord! there he is coming back again. He's seen me through the winder. Mercy on us! he's opening the gate; he's coming to the door!"
As she spoke, a shadow passed before the window, and some one knocked.
Mrs. Eccles hastily thrust her darning-needle into the front of her bodice, the general rendezvous of the pins and needles of the establishment, and proceeded to open the door and plant herself in front of it.
Ruth caught a glimpse of an erect light gray figure in the sunshine, surmounted by a brown face, and the lightest of light gray hats. Close behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed deportment, wearing its body half shaved, but breaking out in ruffles round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail.
"The key of the church is kep' at Jones's, by the pump," said Mrs. Eccles, in the brusque manner peculiar to the freeborn Briton when brought in contact with a foreigner.
"Thank you, madam," was the reply, in the most courteous of tones, and the gray hat was off in a moment, showing a very dark, cropped head, "but I do not look for the church. I only ask for the way to the house of the pastor, Mr. Alwynn."
Mrs. Eccles gave full and comprehensive directions in a very high key, accompanied by much gesticulation, and then the gray hat was replaced, and the gray figure, followed by the black poodle, marched down the little garden path again, and disappeared from view.
Mrs. Eccles drew a long breath, and turned to her visitor again.
"Well, my dear, and did ye ever see the like of that? And his head, Miss Ruth! Did ye take note of his head? Not so much as a shadder of a parting. All the same all the way over; and asking the way to the rectory. Why, you ain't never going yet? Well, good-bye, my dear, and God bless ye! And now," soliloquized Mrs. Eccles, as Ruth finally escaped, "I may as well run across to Jones's, and see if they know anything about the gentleman, and if he's put up at the inn."