Life's Little Ironies

tently, only looking up once now and then to see that he was keeping on the foot track and to avoid other passengers. At those moments, whoeve

h deeper and deeper interest, that he continually 'heard his days before him,' and cared to hear little else, might have been hazarded from what was seen there. His ambitions were, in truth,

e Bishop of a diocese far from his native county, who had looked upon him as a promising young man and taken him in hand. He was no

er the arch of the latter place. Round the arch was written 'National School,' and the stonework of the jambs was worn

e, laid down the pointer with which he was directin

of the sixth standard boys. 'He's goin

e too, when he's saved en

seen for several months, the junior began

n the subject. 'How about your own studies?

ed them, and he rela

the morning. What

replied: 'Ha

w why, but when I feel even too dreary to read a novel I can translate-there is something mechanical about it I suppose. Now,

fraid I

at the best plan will be for you to come there when his lordship is present at an examination, and he'll get you a personal interview with him. Mind you ma

ve you heard from Rosa lately?' he a

ut she must make the most of her time over there. I thought a year would be enough for her, after that high-class sc

y they began to speak of their sister, whom they

he money to com

e near withdrew a few steps. 'I have borrowed it at five per cent. from

out pay

s; and if her face is not her fortune, her face and her brains together will be, if I observe and contrive aright. That she should be, every inch of her, an accomplished and refined woman, was i

n sympathies, who had just dropped in from a superior sort of place, the sight jarred unpleasantly, as being that of something h

ucted into my fat living

subjects to be expounded, truths in spirit to be substituted for truths in the letter . . . ' He lapsed into reverie with the vision of his career, persuading himself that it was ardour for C

ot-. Only think, I bought a copy of Paley's Evidences, best edition, broad margins, excellent preservation, at a

Men's eyes can see the truth without extraneous assistance. Besides, we are in for Christianity, an

op, Joshua, befor

thout that kind of appendage? Archbishop Tillotson was the son of a Sowerby clothier, but he was sent to Clare College. To hail Oxford or Cambridge

more forcibly lately. You would have obtained your degree long before

aid the other. 'We mu

that only the sky was visible. By degrees the haunting trouble loomed aga

face, which grew arid as a clinker.

t we

get here-so

ay. He came to

A

e will cal

not read in the train which took him back to the Fountall Theological College, as he had done on the way out. That ineradicable trouble still remained as a squalid spot in the expan

king slowly across it a man in a fustian coat and a battered white hat with a much-ruffled nap, having upon his arm a tall gipsy-woman wearing long brass earrings. The man was staring quizzically at the west front of the cathedral, and Halborough recognized in him the form and features of his father. Who the woman was he knew not. Almo

iliarly on the sub-dean's shoulder; the shrinking response of the latter, and his quick withdrawal, told his fee

to intercept them before they could reach the front entrance, for

never to send your father as much as a twist o' baccy on such an o

gh with pale dignity, waving his hand towa

married? She helped me home from market one night, and we

Lord an' we did!'

are living in?' asked the millwright. 'A

'Why, we've called to ask ye to come round and take pot-luck with us at the Cock-and-Bottle, where we've put up for the day, on our way to see mis'ess's friends at Binegar Fair, where they'll

eve his father's testimony to the gin, from the odour of his breath. 'You see we have t

nce. Perhaps you won't mind standing t

e younger firmly. 'You

spindle-legged, shoe-buckled parson feller we met

cipal of his college, guardedly inquiring,

ouple to emigrate to Canada. 'It is our only chance,' he said. 'The case as it stands is maddening. For a successful painter, sculptor, musician, author, who takes society by storm, it is no drawback, it is sometimes even a romantic recommendation, to hail from outcasts and profligates. But for a clergyman of the Church of England! Cornelius, it is fatal! To succeed in the Church, people must believe in you, first of all, as a gentleman, secondly as a man of means, thirdly as a scholar, fourthly as a preacher, fifthly, perhaps, as a Christian,-but always first