CHAPTER XXX.
GUARDIANS ARE NOT ALWAYS TO BE ENVIED.
It would have been difficult to find a more easy-going, kind, happy-tempered man than Mr.Ingram.He had never married--this was not because he had not loved.

Stories were whispered about him, and these stories had truth for their foundation--that when he was young he had been engaged to a girl of high birth, great beauty of person, and rare nobility of mind.

Evelyn St.Just had died in her youth, and Mr.Ingram for her sake had never brought a wife home to the pleasant old Rectory.
His sorrow had softened, but in no degree soured the good man.

There had been nothing in it to sour any one--no shade of bitterness, no thread of unfaithfulness.

The Rector firmly believed in a future state of bliss and reunion, and he regarded his happiness as only deferred.