I was not satisfied with the countenance; and yet it looked quite good. It was somehow a too well-ordered face. It was quite Greek in its outline; and marvellously well kept and smooth, considering that the beard, to which razors were utterly strange, and which descended half-way down his breast, would have been as white as snow except for a slight yellowish tinge. His eyebrows were still very dark, only just touched with the frost of winter. His hair, too, as I saw when he lifted his hat, was still wonderfully dark for the condition of his beard.—It flashed into my mind, that this must be the organist who played so remarkably. Somehow I had not happened yet to inquire about him. But there was a stateliness in this man amounting almost to consciousness of dignity; and I was a little bewildered. His clothes were all of black, very neat and clean, but old-fashioned and threadbare. They bore signs of use, but more signs of time and careful keeping. I would have spoken to him, but something in the manner in which he bowed to me as he passed, prevented me, and I let him go unaccosted. The sexton coming out directly after, and proceeding to lock the door, I was struck by the action. “What IS he locking the door for?” I said to myself. But I said nothing to him, because I had not answered the question myself yet. “Who is that gentleman,” I asked, “who came out just now?” “That is Mr Stoddart, sir,” he answered. I thought I had heard the name in the neighbourhood before. “Is it he who plays the organ?” I asked. “That he do, sir. He’s played our organ for the last ten year, ever since he come to live at the Hall.” “What Hall?” “Why the Hall, to be sure,—Oldcastle Hall, you know.” And then it dawned on my recollection that I had heard Judy mention her uncle Stoddart. But how could he be her uncle? “Is he a relation of the family?” I asked. “He’s a brother-in-law, I believe, of the old lady, sir, but how ever he come to live there I don’t know. It’s no such binding connexion, you know, sir. He’s been in the milintairy line, I believe, sir, in the Ingies, or somewheres.” I do not think I shall have any more strange parishioners to present to my readers; at least I do not remember any more just at this moment. And this one, as the reader will see, I positively could not keep out.