JOHN AND MARY.

pERHAPS when the sixteenth century spread its spacious 1. pictures the two houses were one lordly seat ; now, a strip of road divided them, and it was a pretty question which of the two was the true manor-house of the tiny hamlet. In the beautiful homestead that looked up the valley Mary lived with her venerable father, and in the low house of lovely lines that faced the south John passed his days with his ancient housekeeper, Mrs. Tee. When, at rare intervals, John suggested that Mary should cross the road and bring her father with her, Mary merely replied that at his age the old man mustn't be disturbed, and John hardly liked to point out that he could play Mahomet and move to the mountain which was his dear Mary. Mary herself was so happy in this twilight shade of life that night and morning she entreated very fervently that God would save for many a long day yet her father and Mrs. Tee who created such peaceful circumstance. So John spent his days walking over the acres of his forefathers, acquiring the newest rose for the garden, walled in by an Elizabethan wall of exquisite building, which came next to Mary in his heart, and in driving two or three times a week to market to keep in touch with the great world of which he was vaguely afraid. He had never been to London. "Fancy being in a narrow street crowded with folks when I can be in my own fields and not a creature about !" was his scornful way of refusing any invitation.

Every evening he sat in the great armchair opposite Mary and her father until the little grandmother clock in the comer struck nine. Then the old man would say "Now, my dear, I'm ready." Tryst, even among brown spaniels a great lover of the human kind, got up and rubbed his beautiful head against his old master's legs, Mary fetched the candle and the stout stick and crooked her arm, and the little procession moved up the wide staircase, whose steps sloped with age, to the great bedchamber overhead. There the old man sat down on the lovely Chippendale chair at the end of the vast bed, Mary knelt, and prayers were said. The old man liked prayers that were "comprehensive," and in remembering every country and all the special circumstances recorded in the morning paper time galloped withal. So Tryst would recall his old master to place and hour by a disyllabic growl that said perfectly "Amen." When, at last, Mary went downstairs, John came and sat beside her on the sofa, and they made a little conversation of how Mrs. Tee had heard thunder but was surely mistaken, or how Peggy, Mary's wonderful white hen, must really stop laying soon. Outside in the courtyard they differed a little as to whether to- morrow would be fine or wet, and then kissed one another gently under the stars.

From his many friends at market John had always the same greeting. "Well, John, you're not married yet ? " "Not yet, but it's coming." "You must let us know in good time to get the present ready." John looked as inexorable as the Fates. " Nobody will know anything about it till it's over," he said, but even as he spoke there was a little fear in his heart. Would he be able to manage that ?

ihr his ninety-third birthday Mary's father died, and a niece

came to live with Mary. John waited a little before saying : "We shall be getting married now, sha'n't we ? " and Mary answered, trembling : "You must give me a year, John ; I owe that to dear father." Mary loved John dearly, but of marriage she was afraid, as ehry ageing woman fears adventure. The year went by, and John felt at last that he would have to take stern measures. So for many days he waited in the market-place at Layston with his gaze on the Archdeacon's gate, ready to slip in when the coast was clear and no deducing eye was upon him. When at last he accomplished it, and the matter of the licence was put in train, he led the poor Archdeacon a pretty dance in getting him out again undiscovered. A few nights later he took the document out of his pocket. "What's that, John ? " asked Mary, in quick alarm. "It's our marriage licence, my dear. It expires on the twenty-fifth of September. I sha'n't say another word about it. You just tell me when you're ready, that's all. You know I've worn out two suits which should have been my wedding clothes." Mary felt herself caught in a net. Why couldn't they go on as they were ? Marriage was for young people who could fit themselves to anything, not for middle-aged folk who had long ago outgrown newness. On the evening of the twenty- fourth of September, when John was holding up the Daily Telegraph and not seeing a word, there entered a very trembling Mary. "

be married to-morrow, John," she said with tears in her eyes. John hid his delight in a matter-of-fact attitude. "Oh dear ! just when I'd taken off my boots. Now I shall have to put them on again

and get up to Tretton to see the Rector. I can't have a horse taken out at this time of night." Mary sat down, weeping, on the

sofa, and John stooped to comfort her. "It's just no more than nothing at all," he said, soothing. "It's more than that, John" said Mary with deep conviction.

John stole up the shrubbery to the Rectory, 'wondering how he should explain his errand. But no explanation was needed. "I've been expecting you for twenty years, John," said the Rector at once. "What's twenty years ? " asked John scornfully. "I want to be married at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, and if you breathe a word about it to a single soul I'll keep you waiting the full three months for your tithe." At the dreadful threat the Rector held up his hands in holy horror. At half-past seven the next morning Mary walked up to Tretton with a market-basket on her arm. If people saw her so equipped they would easily conclude that she had come for some butter, and perhaps a fowl.

Stealing into the church by the little door which the Rector had left open all night, she found John had not yet arrived. So she put down her basket in the darkest pew and waited in tears for the coming of her bridegroom. The Rector, who was as nervous

as a Guy Fawkes conspirator, had decided that one minute to eight was time enough to tell the sexton and his wife, who was to give the bride away. And as the most misleading device he could think of, he told the sexton's wife to go into the church in her apron, carrying a bucket and her big mop.

John crept up by fields that had no footpaths. Once he had to dodge a bull ; once, catching sight of William Bailey, he made a clean jump through a hedge, and came out the most unkempt John in the four kingdoms. Safely in the church, he was brushed down a little, and then the Rector took them both, hand in hand, to the chancel stops. Before the ceremony was quite completed, John turned right about and started of down the aisle. "Come back, John," cried the Rector, a little aghast, "I haven't finished with you yet." "I'm just going to see who's outside," John explained ; "I shouldn't like it if some one came peeping round the door before it's all over." The Rector resigned himself, while John made a cautious crack and inserted into it one eye. All he saw was William Badley running as hard as he could up the Rectory Hill. He returned to his place with deep relief. "I should think old Mrs. Bailey's taken ill by the way William's running," he said.

"Perhaps that isn't it at all," said the Rector, with inward alarm. He never had believed that two people could be married at eight o'clock in the morning and not a single member of his curious flock know anything about it. At last the register was signed and John almost shook the rafters. "We've done them all," he cried in ecstasy. "We've been married as quiet as a mouse, and now everybody can roar at us like a lion for what I care." They opened the door. There stood William Bailey with as many villagers as

he could muster. Somehow or other word had passed, and John had seen him tearing up the hill to the tiny shop to buy up every available grain of rice. John received them radiantly. He had dreaded a whisper; now he welcomed a shout.

When presently they were walking homewards, he made a pro- position that filled Mary with dismay. "We won't go away, my dear, we'll stop quietly at home. Perhaps they'll give us a peal to-night, and it's hard on a man not to hear his own wedding-bells coming to him across the valley." "Oh, John, it's not . . ."

Poor Mary breathed the word upon the morning air. John took it up in shouting scorn. "If we're not respectable, neither is the Archbishop of Canterbury," he cried in exultation. Mary laid her

hand upon his arm. "I'll run and fetch the bags, John. You shall come back in a day or two, but we must go now. It's only right and proper." John gave way unwillingly. He leaned against

a gate, and looking over his little estate, thought that it had never seemed so appealing as in this first moment of his marriage. And to leave it to be cooped, for opinion's sake, in these early golden hours, in a strange hotel with people who, if the truth were known about them, perhaps didn't even "own their umbrellas"! John was the greatest respecter of property.

Mary found marriage the most beautiful institution in the world. Every day they walked together in the sweet fields of their owning, and at the last turned always from the richness of their valley-land to the richness of their new life. "I was afraid of marriage," said Mary softly ; "now I am afraid of Death." John answered her with a little sigh. "You left it too late, my dear—you left it sadly too late."