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and contented himself with dropping his voice, and muttering something about "amateur-physic." "What age may Mr. Gibson be ?" he proceeded to inquire.

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Getting on for sixty, I reckon."

Quite one of the old school, I suppose ?" "Sir ?"

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Quite one of the old school ?"

"Yes, sir; very much the gentleman: very kind and courteous, with a good word for everybody; and with everybody's good word,-I mean of those whose good word is worth having. He is very much respected, is Mr. Gibson."

"A good deal of Dissent in your village ?"

"No, sir. Some of the Ranters, as they call them, used to have a meeting some years back, at Onecote Heath, but they died out."

"Have you good schools here ?"

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'Well, I suppose there are not many that will beat them hereabouts: our parson is a wonderful man among the children. My young ones are as foud to the full of being at school as of being at home."

"Is that one of your scholars ?" asked Mr. Smith, pointing to a ragged boy with red, sunburnt face, and long, white, uncombed hair, who was gathering horsedung off the road with his hands into a basket.

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'Yes, sir; that's one of Joe Dale's lads: they're a rough lot, they Dales; and the parents let them run wild too soon: but Dick is still at school, I think, or should be. You're one of the parson's scholars, Dick ?”

Dick gave an uncouth kind of a grin, and answered, "Ees; so they tells me, Harry."

Mr. Smith looked rather relieved at the intelligence. Dick had not at all the appearance of being a model boy; and the new Curate's spirits had rather sunk at the encomiums he had been hearing.

He had a misgiving that he was coming to a place where things were well-ordered, and the current would run smoothly; and where there would be little scope for zeal and energy.

"Is the Church well attended? Have you any services on the week-days ?" were the next inquiries.

"You see, sir, my business here keeps me very close to the line. I am forced to be at the station all day on week-days; and can only get to Church once on Sundays.'

"The railway company ought to manage better for its servants," observed Mr. Smith. "I must see what can be done."

"Thank you, sir," answered the porter. "I should be glad enough of a little more time that I could call my own, provided the pay wasn't reduced but with regard to the Church, sir, what I was going to say was, that there is always a good congregation when I am there. I believe there always is on Sundays."

"I am glad to hear it," said the new Curate. "And now tell me, what do you think the parish needs most."

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Well, sir, I'm sure I can't say. Nothing particular that I can think of, unless it be a new clock at the Church, or may be another shop in the place; Miss Scumble's goods are so uncommon dear, and the groceries are so very bad."

Mr. Smith looked discouraged; not at the prospect of roasted beans for coffee, and sloe leaves for tea, but at the orderly quiescence, so to speak, of Cumberworth. He wanted a large tub to splash in, and it seemed as though he would be restricted to a wash hand basin.

But there was no time for further parley. "I reckon, sir," observed the porter, "that you'll be for going to the parsonage; and if so, this is the gate that leads to it."

CHAPTER II.

THE GUEST.

"Hot ardent zeal would set whole realms on fire." Timon of Athens.

THE Reverend John Smith is a most worthy man. I could not name a person of such unflagging energy, tempered as it is in his maturer age with so much sound discretion, and Christian kindness, -the happiest blending of the serpent's wisdom, and the dove's simplicity. I can hardly imagine a man more fit to grapple with the cares and responsibilities of a mitre than my friend Smith. And if the time should ever come, when all the members of the Whig Cabinet should have no relations left whom they can set on episcopal thrones, and when all their wives' ladies'-maids' brothers and cousins have been promoted to deaneries, I cannot help feeling that he must inevitably be made a Bishop, At present (1857) the Premier has made but little progress in serving his friends, in consequence of the insatiable vitality of the existing prelates, some of whom carry out their opposition to the very extremity of rancorous longevity; but it is to be hoped that if (as seems likely) this should be a good year for stone-fruit, there may be a heavy fall of Bishops in the plum season; or that some measure of compulsory resignation may be adopted, (at any rate with respect to the richer sees,) which may open them to Whig expectants; or that some arrangement, comfortable or simoniacal, either or both (it is immaterial which), may be made, which shall give to the Church a supply of the only class of persons at all qualified to hold large spiritual

preferment, the relations, I mean, of Cabinet Ministers.

If, however, such a state of things should occur at some future time, (most improbable, indeed, but not impossible) as that the supply of mitres should exceed the demand for them, and the Prime Minister should be obliged to make an appointment without reference to Cabinet-connections, then I must say that the Reverend John Smith is the most likely person for the first see left vacant under such melancholy circumstances; and I can with very great sincerity add that "I wish he may get it!"

But my business is not with Mr. Smith as he is now, but as he was when he entered on his first pastoral charge, that is, before he had been engaged in the highly practical work of buying his experience, and while as yet he knew nothing of the sensation which results to the man who burns his fingers.

Everybody, I suppose, has holes in his coat somewhere; but if Mr. Smith was in the same condition with the rest of the world, his rents and tears must have been very few in number, or they lay very much out of sight.

He was a superlatively good boy at school; was never seen out of bounds; was never known to be imperfect in his lesson. The only irregularities with which he was ever connected were the irregular verbs in the grammar: the only duties he ever declined were the nouns in the same compendium; and these he declined with avidity. He delighted in making maps of Asia Minor, and could spottle an impromptu Egean with wriggling islands,every one in the right place; every one of the right shape; and every one with the right name. Everything connected with spirits and accents had a charm for him. His Alcaics were such that old

Smout the headmaster (who died Bishop of Bangham, in his ninetieth year, and in black worsted stockings) predicted therefrom his future eminence in Church or State; while his Latin Essay on some of the peculiarities of Peloponnesian Politics, was thought so clever, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer heard of it, and is reported to have inquired whether he was any relation to Sydney of S. Paul's.

And it was just the same at the University. Before he had been half a year at Christ Church he carried off Lady Blennerhassett's Exhibition for the best translation of Hudibras into Elegiac verse, the Tupperian Scholarship for Proverbial Philosophy, and the Fettiplace Medal for a treatise on Lydian Measures; and before he ceased to be an under-graduate, he obtained so many Chancellor's prizes that it was commonly supposed that his head must be always in Chancery.

But this was not all, or the best. John Smith was a thoroughly steady, regular, well-conducted young man. His moral conduct was above all praise; and Censors and College-tutors were never weary of pointing out Mr. Smith as a model worthy of imitation by the juniors of all orders and ranks.

It would have been no great wonder if, at the close of such a successful career, John Smith's head had been somewhat turned. But it was not so. He retained his humility and simplicity to the end, and if some tinge of human infirmity was apparent to those who were most intimate with him, its form seemed a very venial one. He was so much in earnest in all he did, that he seemed sometimes as though he could not realize the notion that any one could be as much in earnest as himself.

It had long been his heart's desire to enter into Holy Orders. Lest I should create a prejudice against so good a man in the minds of the Christians in the Potteries, who seem to have peculiarly

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