Loss and Gain

commons for luncheon, and was employed in making up the fire. Sheffield followed him in, and found Charles in his cap and gown, lounging on

hereabouts; and the planes are so touching just now, with their small multitudinous green hands half-opened; and there are two or three such fine dark willows stretching over the Cherwell; I think some dryad inhabits them: and, as you wind along, just over your

s, friend Jennings had pursed up his lips, and gone through the whole again; so intent, in his wooden enthusiasm, on his own analysis of it, that he did not hear the clock strike the hour; and, in spite of the men's shuffling their feet, blowing their noses, and looking at their watches, on he had gone for a good twenty minutes past the time; and would have been going on even then, he verily believed, but for an interposition only equalled by that of the geese at the Capitol. For that, when he had got about half through his recapitulation, and was stopping at the end o

ve, a very good fellow at bottom. He has before now spoken to me with a good deal of feeling, and has gone out of his way to do

ural, and hated that donnish manner. Wha

: one has this excellence, another that; no one is everything. Why should we not drop what we don't like, and admire w

e good thing is as good as another. But I can't stand here all day," he continued, "when we ought to be w

ve up my meadow

u to go as far as Oxley, a village some little way out, all the vicars of which,

nd prettiness. Sheffield was turning into the High Street, when Reding stopped him: "It alw

ffield; "how are we the better for them? They are mere outsi

s; "this is a great place, and should have a dress. I declare, when I fir

pokers," interr

lpit; then all the Heads in order; and lastly the Proctors. Meanwhile, you see the head of the preacher slowly mounting u

he divines, the students of a great University, are all there to listen. The pageant does but fitly represent the great moral fact which is before us; I understand this. I d

g prayer,"

" continued Sheffield, assuming a pompous and up-and-down tone, "'especially for that pure and apostolic branch of it established,'-here the man rose on his toes, 'established in these dominions.' Next came, 'for our Sovereign Lady Victoria, Queen, Defender of the Faith, in all causes and over all persons, ecclesiastical as well as civil, within these her dominions, supreme'-an awful pause, with an audible fall of the sermon-cas

od from it; and he quoted the words of his father, who, when he one day asked him if so-and-so had not preached a very good sermon

ficult duly to delineate a bore in a narrative, for the very reason that he is a bore. A tale must aim at condensation, but a bore acts in solution. It is only on the long-run that he is ascertained. Then, indeed, he is felt; he is oppressive; like the sirocco, which the native detects at once, while a foreigner is often at fault. Tenet occiditque. Did you hear him make but one speech, perhaps you would say he was a pleasant, well-informed man; but when he never comes to an end, or has one and the same prose every time you meet him, or keeps you standing till yo

ed him. "Are you disposed," he said, "to look into the pretty chapel we are restoring on the common? It is quite a gem-in the purest sty

effield answered; "you would

t a stone's throw from the road; you must

chapel-all it had been, all it might hav

to the Royal Martyr-why should not we have our St. Charles as well as the Romanists?-and it will be quite sweet to hear the ves

gregation they expected

real Catholic churches the number of the congregation is nothing to t

which he can do without a congregation as well as with one. And, again, Catholic chapels often stand over the bodies of martyrs,

iversity did not drop in, which he expected, at

congregation is outside, not inside; it's an outside concern. I once saw a tall church-tower-so it appeared from the road; but on the sides you saw it

apel, quite independent of the service. It has been a chapel from

as good a reason for keeping up th

every Sunday, according to the rite of the English Cyprian,

opish Mass once a week? Bateman's precise meaning, however, is lost to posterity; for they had by this time arrived at the door of the chapel. It had once been the chapel of an almshouse; a small farmhouse stood near; but, for population, it was plain no "church accommodation" was wa

asked the meaning of the beautifully wrought closet or recess above the altar; and received for answer, that "our sister churches of the Roman obedience always had a tabernacle for reserving the consecrated bread." Here Charles was brought to a stand: on which Sheffield asked the use of the niches; and was told by Bateman that images of saints were forbidden by the canon, but that his friends, in all these matters, did what they could. Las