"Bless ye," said your father, "they're very well acquainted already. He lived in Charles's parish in the diocese of Vexer, and was a great favourite, I'm told, of the bishop." "Nonsense, my dear fellow," said the Doctor, taken a little aback, "he can't possibly be a favourite of such a firebrand--it must be some one else; and, besides, he never told me he was a friend of your son." "You can ask him," replied your father, "for I'm quite sure I've often heard Charles talk of his friend Mount Huxtable." A dead silence fell upon us all. Strange, we thought, that he should never have alluded to his acquaintance with you. Can he be ashamed of the way you have been going on? Is he afraid of being suspected of the same ludicrous feastings and fastings that have given you such a reputation here? "Pray, my dear Mount Huxtable," said Dr Smiler, when the new curate, accompanied by the young ladies--like the proud-walking, long-necked leader of a tribe of beautiful snow-white geese--entered the room, "have you ever met our excellent friend, Charles Fustian?" "Fustian--Fustian?" replied the Curate, trying to recollect. "There are so many of that name in the Church, I surely ought to have met with one of them." The Doctor nodded his head, quite satisfied, to your father. "You see, you see," he said, with a chuckle. "I see nothing of the sort," said your progenitor; "for though Fustian is common enough in the Church, I'm sure Mount Huxtable isn't." "That's true," said the Doctor. "Pray, how do you account for Charles Fustian happening to know YOU?" "Ah, my dear sir," answered Mount Huxtable, with a smile to the ladies, "there is an old byword, which says more people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows." A great laugh rewarded this sally, and the Doctor's triumph over his neighbours was complete. "I told you what it would come to," he said; "no true orthodox churchman can have any acquaintance with such a semi-papist as poor Charles." The conversation now went on in the usual channel--that is to say, we talked a little politics, which was very uninteresting, for we all agreed; and the young ones attacked the Curate on music and painting, and church architecture, on all which subjects he managed to give them great satisfaction, for he was an excellent musician, a tolerable artist, and might have passed anywhere for a professional builder. I suppose they were as much astonished as pleased to find that a man might be an opponent of the Tracts, and yet be as deep in church matters as themselves. Encouraged by this, they must have pushed their advances rather far for a first meeting; for, after an animated conversation in the bow-window, Araminta and two or three other young ladies came to the Doctor's chair. "Only think, dear Doctor Smiler," she said, "how unkind Mr Mount Huxtable is. Next Thursday, our practising day in the church, is the Feast of holy St Ingulpus of Doncaster, and he won't give us leave to ornament the altar with flowers."