was alone in his study, more than usually exasperated, at some openly paraded fit of perversity on the part of this amiable creature, that another of his chaplains, Vavasour's devoted friend, begged an audience, and with a face which promised a piece of news worth having. For to men so great, men so small often present "a table of contents (as it were) in their countenances so that if the humour of the hour be not for scandal, or sympathy, or church formality, or lay licence, the august listener may be spared long preambles and the palaver be cut short.

"Mr. Onley," said the Bishop, "you have made some discovery in my household.”

"In your Lordship's family-Marvellous penetration ! " replied Mr. Onley: the latter half of the speech, being an "aside."

"In my family?

What is it, Sir? You know, I am a
And the Bishop gasped :

man of few words-Which? "
as he said to himself—“That unlucky girl again! Might it but
please Heaven to rid me of her!"

"It is my duty to acquaint your Lordship," said the soft spoken and suet-complexioned Mr. Onley, "that an engagement has just been entered into, betwixt Mr. Vavasour and "

"Not Miss Aurelia?" interrupted the Bishop.

The Bishop leaped from his chair, as Mr. Onley averred, a yard upright. His daughter Rhoda had been long a favourite speculation of his. A Marquis had looked at her, a Baronet wanted her, a great manufacturer with thirty thousand a year, had invited her to stay with him during our Kersal Moor Races (though the man was a Whig). She had been noticed at court, as having a peculiarly courtly bend in her figure and was not without parts as well as personal charms-a turn for small diplomacy-a smattering of languages and a soothing way, which no silly Lordling could resist and she to have dared to engage herself to that Mr. Vavasour!-and the worm to have lifted his eyes to such a height! It could not be ! But Mr. Onley was sure of his facts: had proofs (no matter these to my story) had eaves-dropped, and guessed and patched circumstance to circumstance to some purpose-as an intimate friend should do. And shy, and absent, and unworldly as Vavasour was, he was convicted of having absolutely managed to seduce

the affections of the choicest of the Eight episcopal virginsAurelia hardly counting as one of the flock!

Calm, however, and demure sate his Lordship of ..taking in the length and breadth of the horror-the first shock of wonderment over; and, smiling compassionately on Mr. Onley, and pastorally admonishing him of the danger of "mistakes" he dismissed him. But the step of the mischief-maker was hardly across the threshold, when the Bishop's bell was rung more impatiently than Bishop's bell should be, and the offender there and then summoned to his lordly presence. Jedwood Justice was there and then to be executed upon poor Vavasour, for the tremendous severity of which he was little prepared.

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"Come forward, Mr. Vavasour," said the Bishop, as the absent blushing little Chaplain hurried in-almost out of breath with emotion, and consciousness that he had been about a desperate piece of boldness-"Come forward, dear Mr. Vavasour!" and the speaker faced the small man, with that large pair of pale eyes,-open to their widest-of which so few were ever permitted to see the colour; Take a seat, my young friend," continued the Prelate, with all the unction of secret enjoyment, and self-congratulation in the invention of a master-stroke. Weldon, inform Miss Aurelia that I shall wish to speak with her in ten minutes from this time and do not interrupt us on any pretext whatsoever." The butler departed pompously, and the Bishop paused. I hope my shy readers will enter into the especial comfort of that pause, to one already so ill-assured and agitated as poor Andrew Vavasour.

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When the suspense had done its work, the discourse began: in the most honeyed of prelatical tones. His Lordship had sent for the Chaplain, to consult with him on a matter of peculiar delicacy and interest-to give the young man, morcover, some small token of the affectionate, he might say, paternal interest, which he felt :-One of such singular Christian attainments as Mr. Vavasour, who would be so welcome as an acquisition to any family "the poor little Chaplain began to gasp"whose prospects of rising to the highest distinction in the Church were so serenely assured-must, indeed, be alike a charge and a pleasure to every head of a flock, whose sense of responsibility included the happiness present and to come of every human being within the sphere of his influence. In brief, Mr.

Vavasour," continued the merciless Bishop, turning his eyes full on the half-fainting listener, "I am aware of what has been passing in my family: occupied though I may have seemed to you, with the more momentous interests of my public charge. You are attached, Sir, to one of my daughters; and your attachment is returned."

If the Bishop "had a way with him" which would have ground a heart of stone to dust-how much the more was it likely to bear down and confuse one who was already in the hot and cold fits of delicacy and conscious guilt-who felt as burglar might do, when fancying he is carrying on his designs in solitary darkness, who should find himself on the sudden blast of a whistle or tinkle of a bell-picking locks in the full blaze of a glass-room or greenhouse, with an entire family (not to mention two Bow-street runners!) looking curiously on. Never fluent or well assured, save when in the pulpit, poor Vavasour tripped, and tumbled; turned every colour of the rainbow, unable to confess, or to deny; or to utter his thanks, or to arrest the march of his awful friend, by one solitary qualification or remonstrance! Shame never sat on the stool of Repentance much less comfortably.

"I see, my dear friend," resumed the Prelate, with an almost imperceptible smile, "I see your emotion. Cherish it, keep your feelings fresh: they are among the sweetest possessions of the soul! You would thank me, perhaps; but one day you yourself will know what a father will do for the happiness of his daughters. If I have smoothed your path, so do, also, when you shall meet with some youth as calculated to make a superior woman happy as you are now. Pray do not speak: I see, I see! And now, having given you my paternal consent and blessing-let me hand you over to one, who, I am aware, at this moment, is an object of far dearer and deeper interest to you. Weldon," continued the ruthless man, ringing in his factotum, "inform Miss Aurelia that Mr. Vavasour and myself desire the pleasure of her company. I shall but say two words, my dear Son, then leave you to your own full hearts ;" and as he spoke Miss Aurelia entered: the living picture of the "Expressive She," in Hood's inimitable design of " The Dissenter's Marriage."

Was ever bashful lover in such plight? about the Bishop not to be trifled with :

-a

There was something "musical twang " as

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old Aubrey says of the spirits-in his voice, as emphatic as the agreeable invitation "Master Barnardine get up and be hanged!” yet, withal, a covert mockery, which made its way to the very heart of the hearer, though he could have died before turning to protest against the wilful error, or, to say, "Man! I see through you." Don 't kick me with your civility!" exclaims some one in a play-and desperate is the estate of him, who, considering himself kicked, has, yet, not composure enough to return the courteous insult, with point, decision, and advantage. And then that woman! hideous, and harsh; empty and evil, mean and mocking!-Vavasour knew not how deep she might be in the conspiracy! He might be the man of her choice!—I once heard him preach a sermon about "people married against their wills," which opened as it were a trap-door, for me, into his own depths of terror on the occasion. He thought the amiable creature smiled conscious of her power-that he saw a look of agreement exchanged betwixt father and daughter. There was no time to be lost. In another moment he and the Wicked One would be affianced! He must speak: but though he strove so to do, with the passion of a man in a dream-his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth!-He turned east: he turned west there was a beautiful garden full of flowers and song-birds, close outside the window as quiet and inviting as if neither Bishop nor Bishop's daughter was within. He yielded to the impulse of his terror, dismay, and perplexity-dashed through, and was on the lawn-ere he became aware that in his frenzy to escape from the treasure offered to him, he had demolished the costly plate of glass. If Love will break through stone walls, what wonder if Aversion has force enough to make an end of a fragile window?

This catastrophe was all that was wanted to complete the measure of Vavasour's distress! He fled was never seen or heard of more within the walls of the Episcopal Palace: and that day three weeks, his fair and fickle Rhoda married the great manufacturer. So, as the song says, "there was an end of her,' as well as of her humble lover's prospects in the Church!

Novelists are very fond of persons destroyed by a great disappointment. With those who call themselves "religious novelists," calamity is always made to precede conversion. The best natures are deepened not sharpened-softened not soured, by trial. haps the idea of advancement once "" killed dead"-the Curate of Saint Simon's has been a better man ever since the catastrophe:

Per

more free to do his fullest duty by his neighbours: more open to the love of every one among them. Other people will not enter into controversy: he seems, positively, unable to understand what it means. And this damages him with sundry ladies of his congregation" A good man, dear Mrs. Froggatt!" is what you will hear about him from one out of every ten persons,- but lax in his doctrines!" Nay, one irate Virgin, displeased at his lenity over an argument about original sin, did threaten, not long since, to memorialize Vavasour's Bishop on the subject. But how could she keep her word, after he had sat up for three nights with her gardener, when the latter had broken his leg ?—And what wonder that certain of her friends,-eager possibly, to see a quarrel undertaken at another's cost,-sigh when she is mentioned, and say, "Ah poor thing: mollified by mere works!"

Then, when we are speaking of quarrels-how can one forget that the great feud between the Brudges and the Spindletons, which had kept our neighbourhood in water very nearly as hot as Mr Stagg's furnace at the corner of Pymlett Lane, was made up in half an hour, after sixteen years of progress-by the Curate of St. Simon's?-no one could or would tell how :-He himself was always in a bustle (which I take leave to think very nearly as much of a subterfuge as a fib direct) whenever he was asked, which of the two, it was-Mrs. Brudge, or Mr. William Spindleton, who spoke first-and made the apology. Did he not, also, so manage Mr. Packbury, that, at a period, when indulged temper menaced the old gentleman's reason, he changed all of a sudden, and is now as reasonable as most gouty folks? Then, during this weary strife of Catechisms and Dogmas, Pusey and Anti-Pusey, it is admirable to see how he has steered betwixt the stone altar, and the velvet cushion-between smooth formality, and harsh fanaticism!— "When the right time comes," I have heard him say, "let us settle these matters-meanwhile cannot we all be friends?" Good man! the time will never come for one so virtuously busy on Earth-till he gets to Heaven-" and there" I take it, as my Mrs. Bell says, people have something better to do than wrangling about Surplices and Gregorian Chants."

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But though I could dwell for pages more on the religion of my Subject and for pages more tell of his kind acts to great and small-I had best not become tedious. So I will only add to the catalogue, the great scandal which he has outlived :-this, in itself, no mean testimony to his excellence and popularity.