She wondered why that melancholy was so fixed a habit, for the young ever wonder why the experienced should be sad.
And now Evelyn had passed the churchyard, and was on the green turf before the minister's quaint, old-fashioned house.

The old man himself was at work in his garden; but he threw down his hoe as he saw Evelyn, and came cheerfully up to greet her.
It was easy to see how dear she was to him.
"So you are come for your daily lesson, my young pupil ?" "Yes; but Tasso can wait if the--" "If the tutor wants to play truant; no, my child; and, indeed, the lesson must be longer than usual to-day, for I fear I shall have to leave you to-morrow for some days." "Leave us! why ?--leave Brook-Green--impossible!" "Not at all impossible; for we have now a new vicar, and I must turn courtier in my old age, and ask him to leave me with my flock.

He is at Weymouth, and has written to me to visit him there.

So, Miss Evelyn, I must give you a holiday task to learn while I am away." Evelyn brushed the tears from her eyes--for when the heart is full of affection the eyes easily run over--and clung mournfully to the old man, as she gave utterance to all her half-childish, half-womanly grief at the thought of parting so soon with him.

And what, too, could her mother do without him; and why could he not write to the vicar instead of going to him?
The curate, who was childless and a bachelor, was not insensible to the fondness of his beautiful pupil, and perhaps he himself was a little more _distrait_ than usual that morning, or else Evelyn was peculiarly inattentive; for certain it is that she reaped very little benefit from the lesson.
Yet he was an admirable teacher, that old man! Aware of Evelyn's quick, susceptible, and rather fanciful character of mind, he had sought less to curb than to refine and elevate her imagination.