the study window in a patch of sunlight suddenly rose shook himself and io god s good man trotted out on to the lawn the air with ears and tail erect watched him perhaps he a future enemy in miss s dog i and this idea made him smile he is quite intelligent enough he is certainly more intelligent than i am this afternoon for i cannot write even a commonplace ordinary note to a commonplace ordinary woman here a sly brain devil whispered that miss might possibly be neither commonplace nor ordinary � but he put the suggestion aside with a get thee behind me satan the fact is i had better not write to her at all send with a verbal message he is sure to give a quaint and pleasant turn to it � he knew her father and i didn t � it will be much better to send having made this resolve his brow cleared and he was more satisfied tearing up the last half sheet of wasted he had spoilt in futile attempts to address the lady of the he laughed at his failures even if it were etiquette to use the old form of correspondence which some people think ought to be revived it wouldn t do in this case he said imagine it john to � greeting how how ridiculous it would look i he shut all his writing materials in his desk and following out to the lawn seated himself with a volume of in his hand he was soon absorbed yet every now and again his thoughts strayed to the five sisters and with persistent fidelity of detail his mind s eye showed him the grassy so soft to the tread where the doomed trees stood proudly and gracefully clad just at this season all in a glorious of young green � where as the poet whose tender word he was reading might have said of the surroundings for moisture of sweet showers all the grass is thick with flowers yes i shall send up to the with a civil message he mused � and he can � and certainly will � add anything else to it he likes of course the lady may be offended � some women take offence at anything � but i don t much care if she is my conscience will not reproach for having warned her of the impending destruction of one of the most picturesque portions of her property but personally i shall not write to her nor will i go to see her i shall have to god s good man log pay a formal call of course in a week or two � but i need not go inside the for that to leave my card as minister of the parish will be quite sufficient he turned again to the volume in his hand his eyes fell casually on a verse in the poem of the world is filled with folly and and love must cling where it can i say � for beauty is easy enough to win but one isn t loved every day he sighed involuntarily then to banish an regret he began to his author if the world and the of service had not stepped in between lord and his muse he would have been a fine poet he said half aloud � a pity he was not bom and in poverty � he would have been wholly great instead of as now merely greatly gifted he missed his true so many of us do likewise i often wonder whether i have missed mine but this idea no consideration he knew he had not mistaken his calling he was the very man for it many of his cloth might have taken a lesson from him in the whole art of unselfish to the needs of others but with all his high spiritual aim he was essentially human and pleasantly conscious of his own and he did not hold himself as above the weaker brethren but as one with them and of them and through the steady maintenance of this mental attitude he found himself able to in ordinary emotions ordinary interests and ordinary lives with more than the usual sympathy displayed by the ministers of small and in the concerns of the people committed to their charge it is not too much to say that though he was in himself distinctly reserved and apart from the average majority of men the quiet exercise of his influence over the village of st rest had resulted in so and the of love and confidence in all the hearts about him to his own that anything of serious harm to himself would have been considered in the light of real and ruin to the whole community when a clergyman can succeed in establishing such complete trust and sympathy between him r self and his there can be no question of his fitness for the high to which he has been ordained when on the contrary one finds a village or town where the no god s good man inhabitants split up into small and and are more or less in a state of against the minister who should be their ruling head the blame is j more with the minister than with those who dispute his teaching inasmuch as he must hare fallen far below the ex xx standard in some way or other to have thus incurred general if all fails mused presently his ts again to the five sisters question � ii does his errand awkwardly � if the lady will not see him � if any one of the thousand do happen that are quite likely to happen and so spoil all chance of with miss to spare the trees � why then i will go myself to morrow morning to the scene of intended before six o clock i will be there before an axe is 