Scenes of Clerical Life

o buried her. On the first news of Mr. Barton's calamity, he had ridden over from Tripplegate to beg that he might be made of some use, and hi

ch, and from the church to the open grave. There were men and women standing in that churchyard who had bandied vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charge

and that a new and sadder life had begun for papa and herself. She was pale and trembling, but she clasped his hand more firmly as the coffin went down, and gave no sob. Fred and Sophy, though they were only two and three years younger, and though they had seen mamma in her coffin, seemed to themselves to be looking at some strange show. They had not learned to decipher that terrible handwriting of human destiny, illness and death. Dickey had rebelled against his black clothes, until

ms; the Vicarage again seemed part of the common working-day world, and Amos, for the first time, felt that he was alone-that day after day, month after month, year after year, would have to be lived through without Milly's love. Spring would come, and she would not be there; summer, and she would not be there; and he would

for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showe

sympathy with her was not quick and watchful enough; but now he re-lived all their life together, with that terrible keenness o

placing the two eldest girls in a school expressly founded for clergymen's daughters. Mr. Cleves succeeded in collecting thirty pounds among his richer clerical brethren, and, adding ten pounds himself, sent the sum to Amos, with the kindest and most delicate words of Christian fellowship and manly friendship. Miss Jackson forgot old grievances, and came to stay some months with Milly's children, bringing such material aid as she could spare from her small income. These were substantial helps, which relieved Amos from t

and red as to his legs-to run loose in the cow and poultry yard, to persecute the turkey-cock by satirical imitations of his gobble-gobble, and to put difficult questions to the groom as to the reasons why horses had four legs, and other transcendental matters. T

es. Patty's treat was to stay at home, or walk about with her papa; and when he sat by the fire in an evening, after the other children were gone to bed, she would bring a stool, and, placing i

a very bright morning, and evil tidings sometimes like to fly in the finest weather-there came a letter for Mr. Barton, addressed in the Vicar's handwriting. Amos opened it with some anxiety-somehow or other he had a presentime

e he lived close to Milly's grave. To part from that grave seemed like parting with Milly a second time; for Amos was one who clung t

was merely a pretext for removing Mr. Barton, in order that he might ultimately give the

to renounce the hope of getting one at all near Shepperton, and he at length resigned himself to accepting one in a distant county. The parish was in a large manufac

low inflicted on