with the King of kings upon Sinai. His truth endureth from generation to generation; we may all seek help and counsel from on high.

The Curate's voice was very firm and calm. He wished his parishioners happiness and contentment. He reminded the bridegroom of the sacred and indissoluble nature of the contract upon which he was about to enter, and asked kindly after the health of Miss Margaret without one faltering accent. Then he took down the name of Thomas Brown, and filled up the necessary printed forms and notices with a steady hand. Having done so, he asked for Madge's register of baptism, to see if she were of full age, and inquired whether she had father or mother living. "I should have consulted it before," said Mr. Mowledy, with a slight cough, "but the baptismal registers of this parish appear to have been partially, or in some cases altogether, eaten up by mice."

John Giles replied that he would look for this document among his deceased wife's papers, and the two men went away, giving hearty thanks to the Curate, now the ice was broken, and he accompanied them to his door, where he took gentle leave of them.

When they were gone, he sat down and wept, with his grey head bowed upon his hands, and the last hope fled from his lonely existence here below. All was very silent in his room that night and evermore when he was alone. Perhaps the angel came and dwelt with him.

CHAPTER XII.

DR. PORTEOUS.

It was not so easy to find the copy of Madge's certificate of baptism among the relics of the late landlady of the "Chequers" inn. She had left a few old clothes behind her and much linen. If there had been a paper it had been swept away as rubbish, and was lost, or not forthcoming. So John Giles told the parson he could make nought of it, when he saw him next day; and the Curate, after musing for awhile, recollected something he had heard long ago, and which had lingered in his memory. Therefore, he set out upon the following day, by coach, for London, to see Dr. Porteous, rector of Wakefield-in-the-Marsh, who had told him that something which remained in his memory, and who had kept the parish registers before his time.

The rectory of Wakefield was at this period one of those scandals of the Church of England which have not yet quite ceased. It was worth four thousand a-year, secured upon land which had gradually risen in value by improved cultivation in the lapse of ages, while the population of the place had dwindled in like proportion to a few score of souls. Wakefield had first been famous for its bows and arrows, then for its cloth; but commerce and mechanics had moved away from it to other places, and now it produced nothing but a few eggs and a little poultry.

It had once been the seat of a wealthy monastery, and the monastery, transformed into the residence of a shopkeeping peer made by Mr. Pitt, was now in ruins; the shopkeeping peer's money having gone in the next generation to the usurers, from whence it came. The latest holder of the living had been one Dr. Porteous, a gentleman of good family, who had fallen into difficulties; his living had been sequestrated, and he had not been seen at Wakefield for a dozen years. People often spoke of his brother, Sir Richard, who had once owned half the county, and been master of the Cloudesdale hounds; but he too had drifted into space,some said he was at Boulogne, and some at Florence-and the only representative of the rich benefice or its patron was Mr. Mowledy, the village curate.

He had only seen Dr. Porteous twice since he had been appointed to the cure. Once at a club in Pall Mall, when the preliminaries relating to his engagement were arranged, and once at a solicitor's office, when his stipend was in arrear. Upon the latter occasion, Dr. Porteous had declared, with many handsome apologies, that he had received Mr. Mowledy's stipend by a mistake, which he supposed settled the question; and he suggested that they should now start afresh-a proposition to which the Curate agreed, not, however, without bewilderment; but he was not a man of business.

His recollection of this Doctor of Divinity was that of a portly, welldressed clergyman, of great suavity of manner, who had treated him with punctilious politeness, and left him to pay for a luncheon, which the Doctor had ordered, as though he were the treasurer of a bishop who thought such mundane things too profane and small for ecclesiastical observance.

Mr. Mowledy had never seen Dr. Porteous since these transactions, and had never got the arrears of his stipend then overdue; so he felt some delicacy in presenting himself unsummoned before his superior, lest he should appear to him as an importunate creditor. Still Duty having called Mr. Mowledy with its still small voice, he went.

Dr. Porteous lived in the same parish as the Archbishop of Canterbury, not, indeed, from choice, but of necessity; and he lodged in a semirespectable locality called "Melina Place, Lambeth," because it was within the "rules" of the King's Bench Prison. Mr. Mowledy had no difficulty in finding a residence known to all the hackney coachmen of the time, but was surprised, on his arrival there, to find that so grand a personage as the Doctor had condescended to take up his abode in so small a house. It was an unprosperous, dilapidated house; it had a neglected and lopsided or rackety look. As the Curate raised the knocker of the door he observed that one side of it was broken and the other was loose.

A slatternly girl, the maid-of-all-work of a London lodging in the suburbs, answered to his hesitating rap, and behind her was an elderly gentleman going out for a walk.

He was a loosely-dressed person, in large black clothes, stained and

spotted with iron-mould. He wore a shirt-frill, a white neckcloth resembling a pudding-bag, black gaiters, and a broad-brimmed hat, rather rusty. His face seemed red at first sight, but on examination changed to purple. His eyes were bloodshot, his nose, very bulbous as to its shape, was granulated like the mulberry. His legs were thin and shrivelled, his stomach was round. He had a grave, magisterial deportment, and in all his shabby degradation preserved the unmistakeable bearing of a gentleman.

He looked at Mr. Mowledy with the keen alarmed glance which invariably characterizes any human being who has been hunted to earth; and he knew him instantly.

"Dear me !" said he in a magniloquent voice, which seemed to come from the middle of his throat, "my excellent and worthy colleague and friend-permit me to say friend. How do you do, reverend sir-how do you do?"

Dr. Porteous bowed with extreme affability, and hurried down the doorsteps into the dreary garden, which lay waste before the house (as some such garden did before most suburban houses five-and-thirty years ago), and as he did so Mr. Mowledy heard a shrill vixenish female voice in pursuit of him.

The Doctor, however, having safely got beyond reach of it, paused grandly. The natural manners of a well-bred scholar then returned to him, and he asked, with a simplicity and good sense almost touching, what fortunate circumstance had procured him the pleasure of the Curate's visit.

"I think, sir," said Mr. Mowledy, not unmoved by what he saw— for he too was a gentleman-" that you have some private knowledge of a young woman known in your parish as Madge, or Margaret Giles, but who was baptized under some other name."

"Yes," answered the doctor, putting on his unfortunate professional manners again. "I am fully aware of the circumstances to which you refer, Mr. Mowledy. As a clergyman of the Church of England, my sacred and responsible-most responsible and most sacred-calling is duly impressed upon my memory and I may say, Mr. Mowledy, that not an hour of my existence passes by in which I am unmindful of my : duty."

This was not precisely what Mr. Mowledy wanted, and he said so, with much deference and respect.

"Let us dine together," said the Doctor. "It is now five o'clock. Is your club the Oxford and Cambridge or the University? We can then talk over the subject, in which I observe you take an interest. Young women, indeed, naturally inspire benevolence and regard, and I may say that no profession, howsoever sacred be its character, can, or indeed ought to, withdraw us wholly from an influence which refines the manners and purifies the heart."

Mr. Mowledy sighed, and briefly said "he was not a member of any club," a fact which Dr. Porteous knew very well; and if Mr.

Mowledy had been member of both these clubs the Doctor could not have accompanied him to either of them, for he was bound not to go beyond the "rules" of the prison in which he was, by a legal fiction, supposed to be incarcerated for debt: though he had recently bought a limited liberty from the marshal or governor of the King's Bench-an officer who was privileged to sell small supplies of light and air, price ten guineas each.

"Well, then, reverend sir," said the Doctor, with lofty courtesy, "you must dine with me. I hear you have no objection to moderate festivity -nay, I will take no refusal; for what says St. Paul? Does he not enjoin the clergy to practise hospitality. Let us obey the teaching of that saint and gentleman. They cook a rump-steak well not far from hence. I beseech you, in Christian brotherhood, to accompany me thither."

He entered a neat little hotel, where the waiters evidently knew him, and ordered a good dinner, with a bottle of their best port-for the good of the house, he said.

They sat down together, and his heart opened to the good cheer.

"Ah, reverend sir," remarked Dr. Porteous, "there was a time when my larder was always full of old wine and fat venison, and I could have offered you a haunch, with some rare old Madeira worthy of your experienced taste, and which had twice made a voyage to the Indies; «now, we must be content with-what you see."

Mr. Mowledy professed himself perfectly satisfied, as indeed he was, and the dinner continued till, by-and-by the wine warming the Doctor into confidence, he resumed

"Yes, reverend sir, I was not always so unlucky as I am now-the sport of fallen fortunes. I remember my brother said to me, 'Bless you, Ned-for he called me Ned-you shan't starve, though I have brought the old place tumbling down about our ears. Father's and mother's money is gone-so is yours, my boy, at Newmarket; but Will Boultbee is just dead in time. Bishop Smyler, Courthope's tutor, will ordain you, and you shall have the family living before the smash comes and the creditors can seize it.'

"Richard had a warm heart, and we drank many bottles of Burgundy, I remember, that night before we parted.

"You'll have to raise money enough, Edward, to pay my debts of honour to the Duke,' continued my brother, and you must buy an annuity for little Zephirine' (Zephirine, Mr. Mowledy, was the greatest operadancer of her day. She married the Polish Prince Walkyrski shortly afterwards), and the rest will be your own. You'll throw me something across the water out of your tithes now and then, Ned, when I'm out of luck, won't you?'

"Of course I agreed to everything, you know, Mr. Mowledy," said the Doctor, his mouth being full of a salad which he had prepared with much attention; "only, unfortunately, I am free to confess that I found it

difficult to remember that I had not four thousand a-year, which was the full income of the living; whereas I had only six hundred, for Sharpe, the money-lender, father of the present Sharpe, bled me woefully, even as the thieves must have bled the traveller whom the good Samaritan found and nourished."

He finished his story, and told another, then another, washing down the reminiscences of the past with draughts more and more copious, till Mr. Mowledy observed, on a meek consultation of his silver watch, thati t was growing late, and with some dexterity turned the conversation back to Madge.

"Ah, to be sure," said the Doctor, condescendingly, as he opened the third bottle of port. "I remember she was christened in the name of Margaret Wyldwyl. I dined with the Duke a few days after, for he was an intimate associate of my brother, and they used to refresh themselves with wine and wager sums of money with each other. I told his Grace that I had had the honour of performing the rite of baptism to a kinswoman of his illustrious family.

"The devil you had!' said the Duke, looking black as thunder. 'Dit, parson' (for I regret to mention his Grace always used profane oaths after dinner), if any Scotchwoman is taking any

liberties with my name, I expect you to put a stop to it, or I'll set one of my bishops at you, and strip the gown off your back, by George! '

"I knew that his Grace could keep his word, and would do so if I made him angry, for there were no less than three right reverend fathers of the Church who owed their seats in the Upper House to the Wyldwyl influence; so I held my tongue, of course, and nothing more was said about it. But either the Duke himself, or Lord George-well, we won't talk scandal, for the credit of the cloth. Her name, however, is Margaret Wyldwyl, pronounced Wyvil, as you know."

Mr. Mowledy did not know it, and he said so; whereat the Doctor went off again at score, and gave him much curious information as to the arbitrary pronunciation of English family names. He also promised to send him Margaret Wyldwyl's baptismal register, of which he had preserved an authenticated copy, from respect to the aristocracy; and in due time did so, "to prevent unnecessary scandal or inquiry into such a subject," he wrote, with other well-turned sentences to like effect.

The Curate having thus obtained the object of his visit, rose to go, and the Doctor, with great urbanity, called for the bill. When it came, he asked the curate carelessly to settle it; and on Mr. Mowledy putting down a five-pound note for that purpose, he absently took up the change, saying he would give it to Mr. Mowledy when they got home presently. So the Curate accompanied his rector back to Melina Place. When they got there, and knocked for admittance, an angry head in a mob-cap was thrust from the window, and the shrill voice, which Mr. Mowledy had heard before, rated the Doctor in no measured terms. The Curate's heart was touched to see the poor gentleman so humbled, and he moved away a