* * * * *

How it came about nobody exactly knew, unless it was through Hubert, but matters were smoothed for the parson and Lucy.

Mrs. Carradyne knew his worth, and she saw that they were as much in love with one another as ever could be Hodge and Joan.  She liked the idea of Lucy being settled near her—­and the vicarage, large and handsome, could have its unused rooms opened and furnished.  Mr. Grame honestly avowed that he should have asked for Lucy before, but for his poverty; he supposed that Lucy was poor also.

“That is so; Lucy has nothing of her own,” said Mrs. Carradyne to this.  “But I am not in that condition.”

“Of course not.  But—­pardon me—­I thought your property went to your son.”

Mrs. Carradyne laughed.  “A small estate of his father’s, close by here, became my son’s at his father’s death,” she said.  “My own money is at my disposal; the half of it will eventually be Lucy’s.  When she marries, I shall allow her two hundred a-year:  and upon that, and your stipend, you will have to get along together.”

“It will be like riches to me,” said the young parson all in a glow.

“Ah!  Wait until you realise the outlets for money that a wife entails,” nodded Mrs. Carradyne in her superior wisdom.  “Not but that I’m sure it’s good for young people, setting-up together, to be straitened at the beginning.  It teaches them economy and the value of money.”

Altogether it seemed a wonderful prospect to Robert Grame.  Miss Lucy thought it would be Paradise.  But a stern wave of opposition set in from Captain Monk.

Hubert broke the news to him as they were sitting together after dinner.  To begin with, the Captain, as a matter of course, flew into a passion.

“Another of those beggarly parsons!  What possessed them, that they should fix upon his family to play off their machinations upon!  Lucy Carradyne was his niece:  she should never be grabbed up by one of them while he was alive to stop it.”

“Wait a minute, father,” whispered Hubert.  “You like Robert Grame; I know that:  you would rather see him carry off Lucy than Eliza.”

“What the dickens do you mean by that?”

Hubert said a few cautious words—­hinting that, but for Lucy’s being in the way, poor Katherine’s escapade might have been enacted over again.  Captain Monk relieved his mind by some strong language, sailor fashion; and for once in his life saw he must give in to necessity.

So the wedding was fixed for the month of February, just one year after they had met:  that sweet time of early spring, when spring comes in genially, when the birds would be singing, and the green buds peeping and the sunlight dancing.

But the present year was not over yet.  Lucy was sewing at her wedding things.  Eliza Monk, smarting at their sight as with an adder’s sting, ran away from it to visit a family who lived near Oddingly, an insignificant little place, lying, as everybody knows, on the other side of Worcester, famous only for its dulness and for the strange murders committed there in 1806—­which have since passed into history.  But she returned home for Christmas.