She dropped her knitting, and, hurrying to the door, admitted the Rev. Arthur Mason, and ushered him at once into the room where Eloise was sitting, saying as she introduced him, “I s’pose you have come to see her.”

It was an awkward situation for the young man, whose call was not prompted by any thought of Eloise.  His business was with Mrs. Biggs, who had the reputation of being the parish register and town encyclopaedia, from which information regarding everybody could be gleaned, and he had come to her for information which he had been told she could probably give him.  He had been in Crompton but three months, and had come there from a small parish in Virginia.  On the first Sunday when he officiated in St. John’s he had noticed in the audience a tall, aristocratic-looking man, with long white hair and beard, who made the responses loud and in a tone which told the valuation he put upon himself.  In the same pew was a lady whose face attracted his attention, it was so sweet and yet so sad, while the beautiful eyes, he was sure, were sometimes full of tears as she listened with rapt attention to what he was saying of our heavenly home, where those we have loved and lost will be restored to us.  It scarcely seemed possible, and yet he thought there was a nod of assent, and was sure that a smile broke over her face when he spoke of the first meeting of friends in the next world, the mother looking for her child, and the child coming to the gates of Paradise to meet its mother.  Who was she, he wondered, and who was the old man beside her, who held himself so proudly?  He soon learned who they were, and hearing that the Colonel was very lame, and the lady an invalid, he took the initiative and called at the Crompton House.  The Colonel received him very cordially, and made excuses for Amy’s non-appearance, saying she was not quite herself and shy with strangers.  He was very affable, and evidently charmed with his visitor, until, as the conversation flowed on, it came out that the rector was a Southerner by birth, although educated for the ministry at the North, and that his father, the Rev. Charles Mason, was at present filling a vacancy in a little country church in Enterprise, Florida, where he had been before the war.  The Rev. Arthur Mason could not tell what it was that warned him of an instantaneous change in the Colonel’s manner, it was so subtle and still so perceptible.  There was a settling himself back in his chair, a tighter clasping of his gold-headed cane with which he walked, and which he always kept in his hand.  He was less talkative, and finally was silent altogether, and when at last the rector arose to go, he was not asked to stay or call again.  Peter was summoned to show him the door, the Colonel bowing very stiffly as he went out.  How he had offended, if he had done so, the rector could not guess, and, hearing within a week or two that the Colonel was indisposed, he called again, but was not admitted.  Col.  Crompton was too nervous to see any one, he was told, and there the acquaintance had ended.  The Crompton pew was not occupied until Howard came and was occasionally seen in it.  Evidently the new rector was a persona non grata, and he puzzled his brain for a reason in vain, until a letter from his father threw some light upon the subject and induced him to call upon Mrs. Biggs.