on which the Psalms were announced was hung out from before the centre of the gallery, and the clerk, leaving his place under the reading desk, marched up there to give them out. He took this method of preserving his constitutional connexion with the singing, knowing that otherwise he could not have maintained the rightful position of his office in this matter. So matters had stood until shortly before the time of our story.

He

The present curate, however, backed by Miss Winter, had tried a reform. He was a quiet man, with a wife and several children, and small means. had served in the diocese ever since he had been ordained, in a hum-drum sort of way, going where he was sent for, and performing his routine duties reasonably well, but without showing any great aptitude for his work. He had little interest, and had almost given up expecting promotion, which he certainly had done nothing particular to merit. But there was one point on which he was always ready to go out of his way, and take a little trouble. He was a good musician, and had formed choirs

at all his former curacies.

Soon after his arrival, therefore, he, in concert with Miss Winter, had begun to train the children in church-music. A small organ, which had stood in a passage in the rectory for many years, had been repaired, and appeared first at the school room, and at length under the gallery of the church; and it was announced one week to the party in possession, that, on the next Sunday, the constituted authorities would take the church-music into their own hands. Then arose a strife, the end of which had nearly been to send the gallery off in a body, headed by the offended bassviol, to the small red-brick little Bethel at the other end of the village. Fortunately the curate had too much good sense to drive matters to extremities, and so alienate the parish constable, and a large part of his flock, though he had not tact or energy enough to bring them round to his own views. So a compromise was come to; and the curate's choir

were allowed to chant the Psalms and Canticles, which had always been read before, while the gallery remained triumphant masters of the regular Psalms.

My readers will now understand why Miss Winter's salutation to the musical Constable was not so cordial as it was to the other villagers whom they had come across previously.

Indeed, Miss Winter, though she acknowledged the Constable's salutation, did not seem inclined to encourage him to accompany them, and talk his mind out, although he was going the same way with them; and, instead of drawing him out, as was her wont in such cases, went on talking herself to her cousin.

The little man walked out in the road, evidently in trouble of mind. He did not like to drop behind or go ahead without some further remark from Miss Winter, and yet could not screw up his courage to the point of opening the conversation himself. So he ambled on alongside the footpath on which they were walking, showing his discomfort by a twist of his neck every few seconds (as though he were nodding at them with the side of his head) and perpetual shiftings of his bass viol, and hunching up of one shoulder.

The conversation of the young ladies under these circumstances was of course forced; and Miss Mary, though infinitely delighted at the meeting, soon began to pity their involuntary companion. She was full of the sensitive instinct which the best sort of women have to such a marvellous extent, and which tells them at once and infallibly if any one in their company has even a creased rose-leaf next their moral skin.

Before they had walked a hundred yards she was interceding for the rebellious Constable.

"Katie," she said softly, in French, "do speak to him. The poor man is frightfully uncomfortable."

"It serves him right," answered Miss Winter, in the same language; “you don't know how impertinent he was the other day to Mr. Walker. And he won't give way on the least point, and leads

the rest of the old singers, and makes them as stubborn as himself."

"But do look how he is winking and jerking his head at you.

You really mustn't be so cruel to him, Katie. I shall have to begin talking to him if you don't."

Thus urged, Miss Winter opened the conversation by asking after his wife, and, when she had ascertained "that his missus wur pretty middlin," made some other common-place remark, and relapsed into silence. By the help of Mary, however, a sort of disjointed dialogue was kept up till they came to the gate which led up to the school, into which the children were trooping by twos and threes. Here the ladies turned in, and were going up the walk, towards the school door, when the Constable summoned up courage to speak on the matter which was troubling him, and, resting the bass viol carefully on his right foot, called out after them,

Oh, please marm! Miss Winter!" "Well," she said quietly, turning round, "what do you wish to say?"

"Wy, please marm, I hopes as you don't think I be any ways unked 'bout this here quire-singin as they calls it— I'm sartin you knows as there aint amost nothing I wouldn't do to please ee."

"Well, you know how to do it very easily," she said when he paused. “I don't ask you even to give up your music and try to work with us, though I think you might have done that. I only ask you to use some psalms and tunes which are fit to be used in a church."

"To be shure us ool. 'Taint we as wants no new-fangled tunes; them as we sings be aal owld ones as ha' been used in our church ever since I can mind. But you only choose thaay as you likes out o' the book, and we be ready to kep to thaay."

"6 'I think Mr. Walker made a selection for you some weeks ago," said Miss Winter; "did not he?"

"Ees, but 'tis narra mossel o' use for we to try his 'goriums and sich like. I hopes you wunt be offended wi' me,

miss, for I be telling nought but truth." He spoke louder as they got nearer to the school door, and, as they were opening it, shouted his last shot after them, ""Tis na good to try thaay tunes o' his'n, miss. When us praises God, us likes to praise un joyful."

"There, you hear that, Mary," said Miss Winter. "You'll soon begin to see why I look grave. There never was such a hard parish to manage. Nobody will do what they ought. I never can

get them to do anything. Perhaps we may manage to teach the children better, that's my only comfort."

"But, Katie dear, what do the poor things sing? Psalms, I hope."

"Oh yes, but they choose all the odd ones on purpose, I believe. Which class will you take?"

And so the young ladies settled to their teaching, and the children in her class all fell in love with Mary before church time.

The bass viol proceeded to the church and did the usual rehearsals, and gossipped with the sexton, to whom he confided the fact that the young missus was terrible vexed. The bells soon began to ring, and Widow Winburn's heart was glad as she listened to the full peal, and thought to herself that it was her Harry who was making so much noise in the world, and speaking to all the neighbourhood. Then the peal ceased as church-time drew near, and the single bell began, and the congregation came flocking in from all sides. The farmers, letting their wives and children enter, gathered round the chief porch and compared notes in a ponderous manner on crops and markets. The labourers collected near the door by which the gallery was reached. All the men of the parish seemed to like standing about before church, though poor Walker, the curate, did not appear. He came up with the school children and the young ladies, and in due course the bell stopped and the service began. There was a very good congregation still at Englebourn; the adult generation had been bred up in times when every decent person in the parish

went to church, and the custom was still strong, notwithstanding the rector's bad example. He scarcely ever came to church himself in the mornings, though his wheel-chair might be seen going up and down on the gravel before his house or on the lawn on warm days; and this was one of his daughter's greatest troubles.

The little choir of children sang admirably, led by the schoolmistress, and Miss Winter and the curate exchanged approving glances. They performed the liveliest chant in their collection, that the opposition might have no cause to complain of their want of joyfulness. And in turn Miss Wheeler was in hopes that out of deference to her the usual rule of selection in the gallery might have been modified. It was with no small annoyance, therefore, that, after the Litany was over and the tuning finished, she heard the clerk give out that they would praise God by singing part of the ninety-first Psalm. Mary, who was on the tiptoe of expectation as to what was coming, saw the curate give a slight shrug with his shoulders and lift of his eyebrows as he left the reading-desk, and in another minute it became a painful effort for her to keep from laughing as she slyly watched her cousin's face; while the gallery sang with vigour worthy of any cause or occasion

"On the old lion He shall go,

The adder fell and long;
On the young lion tread also,

With dragons stout and strong."

The trebles took up the last line, and repeated

"With dragons stout and strong;"

and then the whole strength of the gallery chorused again,

"With dra-gons stout and strong,"

and the bass viol seemed to her to prolong the notes and to gloat over them as he droned them out, looking triumphantly at the distant curate. Mary No. 7.-VOL. II.

was thankful to kneel down to compose her face. The first trial was the severe one, and she got through the second psalm much better; and by the time Mr. Walker had plunged fairly into his sermon she was a model of propriety and sedateness again. But it was to be a Sunday of adventures. The sermon had scarcely begun when there was a stir down by the door at the west end, and people began to look round and whisper. Presently a man came softly up and said something to the clerk; the clerk jumped up and whispered to the curate, who paused for a moment with a puzzled look, and, instead of finishing his sentence, said in a loud voice, "Farmer Grove's house is on fire!"

The curate probably anticipated the effect of his words; in a minute he was the only person left in the church except the clerk and one or two very infirm old folk. He shut up and pocketed his sermon, and followed his flock.

It proved luckily to be only farmer Grove's chimney and not his house which was on fire. The farmhouse was only two fields from the village, and the congregation rushed across there, Harry Winburn and two or three of the most active young men and boys leading. As they entered the yard the flames were rushing out of the chimney, and any moment the thatch might take fire. Here was the real danger. A ladder had just been reared against the chimney, and, while a frightened farm-girl and a carter-boy held it at the bottom, a man was going up it carrying a bucket of water. It shook with his weight, and the top was slipping gradually along the face of the chimney, and in another moment would rest against nothing. Harry and his companions saw the danger at a glance, and shouted to the man to stand still till they could get to the ladder. They rushed towards him with the rush which men can only make under strong excitement; but the foremost of them caught a spoke with one hand, and, before he could steady it, the top slipped clear of the chimney, and

F

ladder, man, and bucket came heavily to the ground.

Then came a scene of bewildering confusion, as women and children trooped into the yard-"Who was it?" "Was he dead?" "The fire was catching the thatch." "The stables were on fire." "Who done it?"-all sorts of cries, and all sorts of acts except the right ones. Fortunately, two or three of the men, with heads on their shoulders, soon organized a line for handing buckets; the flue was stopped below, and Harry Winburn, standing nearly at the top of the ladder, which was now safely planted, was deluging the thatch round the chimney from the buckets handed up to him. In a few minutes he was able to pour water down the chimney itself, and soon afterwards the whole affair was at an end. The farmer's dinner was spoilt, but otherwise no damage had been done, except to the clothes of the foremost men; and the only accident was that first fall from the ladder.

The man had been carried out of the yard while the fire was still burning; so that it was hardly known who it was. Now, in answer to their inquiries, it proved to be old Simon, the rector's gardener and head man, who had seen the fire, and sent the news to the church, while he himself went to the spot, with such result as we have seen.

The surgeon had not yet seen him. Some declared he was dead; others, that he was sitting up at home, and quite well. Little by little the crowd dispersed to Sunday's dinners; and, when they met again before the afternoon's service, it was ascertained that Simon was certainly not dead, but all else was still nothing more than rumour. Public opinion was much divided, some holding that it would go hard with a man of his age and heft; but the common belief seemed to be that he was of that sort "as'd take a deal o' killin," and that he would be none the worse for such a fall as that.

The two young ladies had been much shocked at the accident, and had accompanied the hurdle on which old Simon was carried to his cot

tage door; after afternoon service they went round by the cottage to inquire. The two girls knocked at the door, which was opened by his wife, who dropped a curtsey and smoothed down her Sunday apron when she found who were her visitors.

She seemed at first a little unwilling to let them in; but Miss Winter pressed so kindly to see her husband, and Mary made such sympathising eyes at her, that the old woman gave in, and conducted her through the front room into that beyond, where the patient lay.

"I hope as you'll excuse it, miss, for I knows the place do smell terrible bad of baccer; only my old man he said as how-"

Oh, never mind, we don't care at all about the smell. Poor Simon! I'm sure if it does him any good, or soothes the pain, I shall be glad to buy him some tobacco myself."

The old man was lying on the bed with his coat and boots off, and a worsted nightcap of his wife's knitting pulled on to his head. She had tried hard to get him to go to bed at once, and take some physic, and his present costume and position was the compromise. His back was turned to them as they entered, and he was evidently in pain, for he drew his breath heavily and with difficulty, and gave a sort of groan at every respiration. He did not seem to notice their entrance; so his wife touched him on the shoulder, and said, "Simon, here's the young ladies come to see how you be."

Simon turned himself round, and winced and groaned as he pulled off his nightcap in token of respect.

"We didn't like to go home without coming to see how you were, Simon. Has the doctor been ?"

'Oh, yes, thank'ee, miss. been and feel'd un all over, and listened at the chest on un," said his wife.

"And what did he say?"

"A zem'd to zay as there wur no bwones bruk-ugh, ugh," put in Simon, who spoke his native tongue with a buzz, imported from farther west, "but

a couldn't zay wether or no there warn't som infarnal injury-"

"Etarnal, Simon, etarnal!" interrupted his wife; "how canst use such words afore the young ladies?"

"I tell'ee, wife, as 'twur infarnalugh, ugh," retorted the gardener.

"Internal injury?" suggested Miss Winter. "I'm very sorry to hear it."

"Zummat inside o' me like, as wur got out o' place," explained Simon; "and I thenks a must be near about the mark, for I feels mortal bad here when I tries to move ;" and he put his hand on his side. "Hows'm'ever, as there's no bwones bruk, I hopes to be about to-morrow mornin', please the Lord-ugh, ugh!"

"You mustn't think of it, Simon," said Miss Winter. "You must be quite quiet for a week, at least, till you get rid of this pain."

"So I tells un, Miss Winter," put in the wife. "You hear what the young missus says, Simon?"

"And wut's to happen Tiny?" said the contumacious Simon scornfully. "Her'll cast her calf, and me not by. Her's calving may be this minut. Tiny's time wur up, miss, two days back, and her's never no gurt while arter her time."

"She will do very well, I dare say," said Miss Winter. "One of the men can look after her."

The notion of any one else attending Tiny in her interesting situation seemed to excite Simon beyond bearing, for he raised himself on one elbow, and was about to make a demonstration with his other hand, when the pain seized him again, and he sank back groaning.

"There, you see, Simon, you can't move without pain. You must be quiet till you have seen the doctor again."

"There's the red spider out along the south wall, ugh, ugh," persisted Simon, without seeming to hear her; "and your new g'raniums a'most covered wi' blight. I wur a tacklin' one on 'em just afore you cum in."

Following the direction indicated by his nod, the girls became aware of a plant by his bed-side, which he had been fumigating, for his pipe was leaning against the flower-pot in which it stood.

"He wouldn't lie still nohow, miss," explained his wife, "till I went and fetched un in a pipe and one o' thaay plants from the greenhouse."

"It was very thoughtful of you, Simon," said Miss Winter; 66 you know how much I prize these new. plants: but we will manage them; and you mustn't think of these things now. You have had a wonderful escape to-day for a man of your age. I hope we shall find that there is nothing much the matter with you after a few days, but you might have been killed, you know. You ought to be very thankful to God that you were not killed in that fall."

"So I be, miss, werry thankful to un-ugh, ugh;-and if it plaase the Lord to spare my life till to-morrow mornin',-ugh, ugh,—we'll smoke them cussed insects."

This last retort of the incorrigible Simon on her cousin's attempt, as the rector's daughter, to improve the occasion, was too much for Miss Mary, and she slipped out of the room lest she should bring disgrace on herself by an explosion of laughter. She was joined. by her cousin in another minute, and the two walked together towards the rectory.

"I hope you were not faint, dear, with that close room, smelling of smoke?"

"Oh, dear no; to tell you the truth, I was only afraid of laughing at your quaint old patient. What a rugged old dear it is. I hope he isn't much hurt."

"I hope not, indeed; for he is the most honest, faithful old servant in the world, but so obstinate. He never will go to church on Sunday mornings; and, when I speak to him about it, he says papa doesn't go, which is very wrong and impertinent of him."