My New Curate

ckens, or a high voice, heard occasionally in anger, was rudely shocked on the following Thursday evening. The unusual commotion c

the circus! the wild

f all this curiosity lumbered into the street, three loafers, who supported a blank wall opposite my door, steered round as slowly as a vessel swings with the tide, and leaned the right shoulder, instead of the left, against the gable. It was a tremendous expenditure of energy; and I am quite sure it demanded a drink. And I, feeling

ECHN

nt I heard the caravan stopping just a few doors below, and I heard my bedroom window raised; and I knew that Hannah was half way between heaven and earth. I have not a particle of curiosity in my composition, but I drew back the curtain again, and looked down the street. The van had stopped at Father Letheby's new house, and a vast crowd surged around it. T

, what

the place where the

place to live in? And

he wa

' a

he wa

not Christians

called "sthramers" flying behind, came out of Father Letheby's cottage, and helped to take the furniture within. As each pretty article appeared, there was a chorus of "oh-h-hs" from the children. But the climax of delight was reac

bed?" "No." "A dresser?" "N

to the great house at a spring cleaning, astonis

pianney! Yerra, his niece is going to live

ove side by side in our character, apparently on good terms with each other. Will the time come when the laughter and the wit, grown rampant, will rudely jostle aside a

it all. Hannah too is versatile; and leaps fr

e, I suppose?" I said, whe

a tone of ineffable scorn,-"a pa

looked nice fr

rs, unless you have yo

looking-gla

air, I suppose. And a

Hannah," I said. This open

in the land? And these chairs? Only for the smith, they'd be gone to pieces long ago. And that lovely carpet? 'T would do for a flag for the 'lague.

is going to show us what's what. I'll furnish the whol

"Some poor girl from an orphanage. If she

ee legs, it leaned in a loafing way against the wall, and its rags of horsehair and protruding springs gave it a most trampish and disreputable appearance. The chairs were solid, for the smi

een good things and evil things. Our faces are famil

encies which I clearly foresaw the moment my curate made his appearance, these old veterans should never be set aside or

ot ashame

own disturbed imaginings, but always uttered your calm wisdom like voices from eternity, to soothe, to control, or to elevate; friends that never tired and never complained; that went back to your recesses without a murmur; and never resented by stubborn silence my neglect,-treasures of thought and fountains of inspiration, you are the last things on earth on which my eyes shall rest in love, and like the orphans of my flock your future shall be my care. True, like your authors, you look sometimes disreputable enough. Your clothes, more to my shame, hang loose and tattered around you, and some of you

ettish little mirrors here and there, a choice selection of daintily bound volumes, and on a writing desk a large pile of virgin manuscript, spoke the scholar and the gentleman. My heart sank, as I thought how sick of all this he will be in a few we

nest for yourself, Father Le

my horrible scepticism, "God has

u do with an op

to a window against which four very dirty noses were flattened, and four pairs of delighted eyes were wand

said, "it gives them plea

ot bring the

inted to the shining waxed floors. "Besides, it would destroy their heave

f things. Then, looking a little nervousl

ying a serious word t

t," I replied

I am not an advocate for great political designs: I go in for decentralization, by which I mean that each of us should do his very best exactly in that place where Providence has placed him. To be precise, what is there to prevent us from improving the material condition of these poor people? There is a pier to be built. I am told shoals of fish whiten the sea in the summer, and there are no appliances to hel

not," said

I seemed to hear my own voice echoing back from thirty years long passed by, when the very same words were on my

see the landlord, who owns the s

quite easy. What's his addre

alf his property on the red at Monte Carlo, or trying to peep into a ha

ked sh

nt,-his repr

e very polite, and tell you in well

ental Office,-th

ommunication, which shall have our earliest attention.' You'll write again. Reply in four weeks: 'We beg to acknowledge receipt

redress? What a

Chief Secretary will reply: 'The matter is under the deliberation of

as s

e manager will come down, look at the store, turn up his nose, ask you where are you to find funds to put the building in proper order, and do you propose to make

ittle Japanese gimcracks, "our people are the cleanest, purest, sweetest people in the world in th

cent adjective-condemned. But what eloquence and emphasis there is in it! How often I could have flung it at the head of a confirmed toper, as he knelt at my feet to take the pledge. How often I could have shot it at the virago, wh

us. You want to create a Uto

smi

ving the wo

cried. "Let me

won't thank you even in the impos

ed incr

selves from all this squalor and misery, an

their lobster pots at night. Next day, they have caught enough of these ugly brutes to pay for a glorious drunk. Then sleep again. How can you add to such happiness? By building a schooner, and sending them out on the high seas, exposed to all the dangers of the deep; and they h

nds sensible; but there is some vile fallacy at the botto

how innocent you are. You

ked su

, "you will understand that by that formula you ask for a dr

ed me. It was like the r

he said. "I

a few gray hairs in your raven lock

leap over the meshes of good counsel, the cripple." Which is not m