"Then it must be that silly, ignorant coxcomb, Charles Fustian, my own godson, my favourite from his youth--an excellent fellow, but a conceited ass--I wish he had never gone into the diocese of Vexer." This is the tender way in which you are spoken of, my dear Charles; and I feel sure you will appreciate the compliment paid to you by the Doctor, losing his temper, but retaining his affection. There was a blush on Tinderella's cheek as she entered into a defence of "the Reverend Charles Fustian, a priest of our church;" and she almost curtsied in reverence for your name and office; and I advise Araminta to keep watch over her friend's proceedings, for I don't think Tinderella is so deeply attached to the doctrine of celibacy as she pretends. And I take this opportunity also, my dear Charles, to tell you that I shall keep watch over YOU; and if I find you casting your smiles at Tinderella, and holding her by the hand, and recommending her to enter into the privileges of confession, in the summer-house in her father's garden--and holding forth all the time on the blessings of a conventual life and penance, and hair shirts and a cat-o'-nine-tails--I shall be greatly inclined to recur to the discipline that used to improve your manners greatly when you were a little boy, and use the scourge with more effect than when you apply it to your shoulders with your own hand. The Doctor has just been here, and as I know you will be rejoiced to hear the news he gave me, I will transmit it to you at once. "Buddle," he said to me, "you have perhaps seen how vainly I have tried to resist the parish, at least the young ladies of the parish; for I am sorry to say, that, with the exception of yourself and two or three others of the seniors, the parish has left me to fight the battle alone." "My dear Smiler," I replied, "what can we do? Surely, if we lie quiet on our oars, the fancy for that sort of thing will go off." "Not at all; as they get older it will get worse. There is some hope for them when they are very young, but in a few years there is no chance of escaping a universal passing over to the Pope; and between ourselves,"--and here the Doctor looked at the door, as if he wished to bolt it with a twist of his eye--"I am in great anxiety of mind lest they carry me with them. Yes, my good Buddle, it would not surprise me if I awoke some morning and found myself a monk." "How? Haven't you signed the articles and repeated the creed, and the oath of abjuration, and all that?"