It happened in April, or perhaps May? Don’t remember now, but the sun shone, pink freesias bloomed, and all week a sensation of brewing newness had wafted in the air.

A wanderer, who we now know as Miss Franny Yoxall, had snuck in the chapel door ten minutes late. She sat on a pew that appeared vacant but soon was assured that stall was taken. An usher, seeing the error, rose, beckoning her toward another bench filled with only two other occupants, widower Mr Jareth Seabrooke and his old mother, Everly. Franny left before I could welcome her, but returned the next week, earlier this time, eyes flushed, lace bonnet askew.

She sat on that pew again, before realising Jareth sat there also, after all it’s his habitual sitting spot. And this time as I preached, I spied something quite sweet. Franny Yoxall, closed her right eye, turned her face a hair’s breadth left, peeked at the good-natured relicit, then looked frontwards again all within two ticks of the clock.

I kept my voice stern, preaching “narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it”, but my mouth twitched, then beamed a sly grin. Franny’s cheeks glowed, then burned a bright crimson. Five minutes early, she departed the divine service. Then, every Sunday after, she sat in the front row, all alone, splitting the second the sermon was over, even though it appeared the solitary Seabrooke attempted at standing near her.

I can’t say how I did it, but one Sunday I caught her before she had darted, saying, “Hello, Dr Parfrey Jones, Senior Elder of First Baptist Clausen. Don’t you think you could stay this time, instead of hurrying away? We’d all like to know you including, it seems, a fine fellow named Seabrooke.”

Franny tilted her head sideways, “He wouldn’t want me. I’ve done so much wrong, and I’m not fun.”

“My dear, that sounds like a lot of us, yet most of us still marry.”

“Well, I haven’t earned much in quite a while. He’ll think I’m after his money.”

“Every week I stand behind my wooden pulpit gaining a viewpoint of the whole congregation. I see a yawn, from Mr Abney; glazed eyes, from Mrs Batts, Master Eason tugging on little Miss Corwin’s pigtails, once again; Miss Garbutt tittering out the side of her mouth at her neighbour, every time she disagrees with something I have said; and Mr and Mrs Hammond not standing quite as close as they did last spring, when I married them, but you, when I look at you, I know you’re as pure as snow. So, perhaps, maybe, you’ll stay and say, “Hello?”

Miss Franny Yoxall, stood, chewing her lip. “All right. I’ll tarry but not for long.”

And that’s how it happened, a new love story dawning while the sun shone, the pink freesias bloomed and with a sensation of brewing newness wafting in the air.

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