Friday Afternoon

"I wonder if Mrs. Meredith has come," he thought, as, with his feet
upon the window-sill, he sat looking across the meadow-land to where
the chimneys and gable roof of Captain Humphreys' house was visible,
for Captain Humphreys was Anna Ruthven's grandfather, and it was there
she had lived since she was three years old.

As if thoughts of Mrs. Meredith reminded him of something else, the
rector took from the drawer of his writing table a letter received the
previous day, and, opening to the second page, read again as follows: "Are you going anywhere this summer? Of course not, for so long
as there is an unbaptized child, or a bed-ridden old woman in the
parish, you must stay at home, even if you do grow as rusty as
did Professor Cobden's coat before we boys made him a present of
a new one. I say, Arthur, there was a capital fellow spoiled when
you took to the ministry, with your splendid talents, and rare
gift for making people like and believe in you.

"Now, I suppose you will reply that for this denial of self you
look for your reward in heaven, and I suppose you are right; but
as I have no reason to think I have any stock in that region, I
go in for a good time here, and this summer I take it at
Saratoga, where I expect to meet one of your lambs. I hear you
have in your flock forty in all, their ages varying from fifteen
to fifty. But this particular lamb, Miss Anna Ruthven, is, I
fancy, the fairest of them all, and as I used to make you my
father confessor in the days when I was rusticated out in
Winsted, and fell so desperately in love with the six Miss
Larkins, each old enough to be my mother, so now I confide to you
the programme as marked out by Mrs. Julia Meredith, the general
who brings the lovely Anna into the field.