"Yes; Lady Gambit had engaged a celebrated mimic--a man, I mean, who can take off other people to the life." "Indeed," said Walter. "Perhaps it might have been as well if he had taken himself off. But, excuse my nonsense; what did he mimic?" "Oh, all sorts of funny people. We all gathered round him under the great sycamore tree, and he kept us in peals of laughter for an hour." "Tell me, please, some of the characters he took off." "I can remember two especially. One of them was a drunkard, and the other was a hypocrite. In taking off the drunkard he called himself `Mr Adolphus Swillerly.' You never heard anything more amusing in your life." "And the hypocrite?" asked Walter, but with less of amusement in his tone. "Ah, I think that was better still! He assumed the character of `Simon Batter-text;' and he mimicked his preaching, and his praying, and his sighs, and his `ahmens' in a wonderful way. It really was perfect. I'm so sorry you were not there, you would have so thoroughly enjoyed it." There was a pause, and a general silence, for the attention of the rest of the company had been drawn to the subject and the speakers. "Surely you don't see any harm in a little fun like that?" asked the young lady in some dismay, as she noticed that Walter's face and manner were troubled as he hesitated in his reply. All eyes were on him. What should he say? He turned very red; and then, having helped himself to a glass of wine, he said, carelessly, and with a short, merry laugh, "Harm! oh, of course not! The man meant no harm; he didn't attack individuals. All the better if he made drunkenness and hypocrisy ridiculous.--Don't you think so, Amos?" For a moment his brother hesitated, for every eye was directed towards him. No one spoke; not a knife nor fork clattered. "Well, my boy," said his father, "let us have your opinion." Thus appealed to, Amos no longer hesitated, but said calmly, and in a low distinct voice, heard by every one at the table, "I had rather not have given my opinion; but, when I am thus openly appealed to, I must not shrink from expressing it. I think it wrong, utterly wrong, to ridicule sin in any shape or form. To put sin in a funny light is not the way to make us hate it as we ought to do. Our Saviour never made light or a jest of sin; and I believe that the man who mimicked a drunkard and a hypocritical preacher had no love for either sobriety or holiness."