"I will be there before eight," said Mr. Backup, rising as Frank rose.
"Thank you. I suppose it is nothing new to you," lightly added Frank, as a passing remark. "You have married many a couple, I dare say."
"Well—not so many. In my late curacy, the Rector liked to take the marriages himself. I chiefly did the christenings: he was awkward at holding the babies."
"By the way, I have another request to make," said Frank, pausing at the front-door, which the clergyman had come to open for him. "It is that you would kindly not mention this beforehand."
"Not mention? I don't quite understand," replied the bewildered young divine. "Not mention what?"
"That there's going to be a wedding to-morrow. The parties would not like the church to be filled with gaping miners; they wish it to be got over quite privately."
"I will certainly not mention it," readily assented Mr. Backup. "For that matter, I don't suppose I shall see any one between now and then. About the clerk——"
"Oh, I will see him: I'll make that all right," responded Frank. "Good-evening."
He went skimming over the grave-mounds to the opposite side of the churchyard, with little reverence, it must be owned, for the dead who lay beneath: but when a man's thoughts are filled with weddings, he cannot be expected to be thinking about graves. Crossing a stile, he was then close to the clerk's dwelling: a low, one-storied cottage with a slanting roof, enjoying the same agreeable view as the Rectory. The clerk's wife, a round, rosy little woman, was milking her goat in the shed, her gown pinned up round her.
"Halloa, Mrs. Trim! you are doing that rather late, are you not?" cried Frank.