"We shall see!--We shall see!" she said aloud, and was startled to hear
her words quite plainly in the silent church. As she spoke she stooped
to separate her flowers and see what quantities she had of each.

But while she did so a sound of distant voices made her raise herself
again. She walked down the church and stood at the open south door,
looking and waiting. Before her stretched a green field path leading
across the park to the village. The vicar and his sister were coming
along it towards the church, both flower-laden, and beside walked a tall
man in a brown shooting suit, with his gun in his hand and his dog
beside him.

The excitement in Marcella's eyes leapt up afresh for a moment as she
saw the group, and then subsided into a luminous and steady glow. She
waited quietly for them, hardly responding to the affectionate signals
of the vicar's sister; but inwardly she was not quiet at all. For the
tall man in the brown shooting coat was Mr. Aldous Raeburn.




CHAPTER IV.


"How kind of you!" said the rector's sister, enthusiastically; "but I
thought you would come and help us."

And as Marcella took some of her burdens from her, Miss Harden kissed
Marcella's cheek with a sort of timid eagerness. She had fallen in love