The Rev. Mr. Perth, as the new Methodist minister, was just now occupying the attention of Briarsfield.

“It’s interesting to have new people come to town.  I wonder if they will be very nice.  Are they young?” asked Beth.

“Yes.  They haven’t been married so very long.”

“Edith”—­Beth hesitated before she finished the quietly eager enquiry—­“do you still think marriage the best thing in the world?”

Edith gave her friend a warm embrace in reply.  “Yes, Beth, I think it the very best thing, if God dwell in your home.”

“That sounds like Arthur,” said Beth.

“Do you ever hear of him.  Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is,” said Beth, with a half sigh.

Clarence walked home with Beth to dinner, after church, the next morning.

“How do you like the new minister?” Beth asked.

“Oh, I think he’s a clever little fellow.”

“So do I,” said Beth.  “He seems to be a man of progressive ideas.  I think we shall have bright, interesting sermons.”

Marie was slightly ill that Sunday, and did not come out.  Clarence and Beth took a stroll in the moonlight.  The world looked bright and beautiful beneath the stars, but Clarence was quieter even than usual, and Beth sighed faintly.  Clarence was growing strangely quiet and unconfidential.  He was certainly not a demonstrative lover.  Perhaps, after all, love was not all she had dreamed.  She had painted her dreamland too bright.  She did not acknowledge this thought, even to her own soul; but her heart was a little hungry that summer night.  Poor Beth!  Before another Sabbath she was to know a greater pain than mere weariness.  The flames were being kindled that were to scorch that poor heart of hers.

It was about ten o’clock the next night when she finished her novel.  Somehow it gave her a grave feeling.  Aunt Prudence was in bed, and Dr. Woodburn had gone out into the country to a patient, and would not return till midnight.  The house was so still, and the sky and the stars so beautiful; the curtains of her open window just moved in the night air!  It was all ended now—­that dreamland which she had lived and loved and gave expression to on those sheets of paper.  Ended!  And she was sitting there with her pen in her hand, her work finished, bending over it as a mother does over her child.  She almost dreaded to resign it to a publisher, to cast it upon the world.  And yet it would return to her, bringing her fame!  She was sure of that.  The last scene alone would make her famous.  She could almost see the sweet earnest-eyed woman in her white robes at the altar; she could hear the sound of voices and the tread of feet; she was even conscious of the fragrance of the flowers.  It was all so vivid to her!

Then a sudden impulse seized her.  She would like so much to show it to Clarence, to talk to him, and feel his sympathy.  He never retired much before midnight, and it was scarcely ten minutes’ walk.  She would get back before her father returned, and no one would know.  Seizing her hat, she went quietly out.  It was a freak, but then Beth had freaks now and then.  A great black cloud drifted over the moon, and made everything quite dark.  A timid girl would have been frightened, but Beth was not timid.