should perhaps have shrunk from their aspect, had not nervousness, and perhaps a feeling that every one of them might in a few minutes find himself in my identical position, placed us all on a level. So I looked almost boldly about me. After a few minutes, I was on the point of addressing an old acquaintance, when, above the shoulder of the man to whom I was about to speak, there appeared a face, often seen but always loathed in my walking and sleeping visions. It was Maxey's. The cosmopolitan handkerchief had disappeared, and the debauched eyes looked brighter and less bloodshot than of old; but it was the same Maxey who fraternised with me on the day of my fall. He was--I am sorry to say--attempting to get into orders. He had been rejected, he told me, once before, but he had now been "coached by so-and-so half a year, and meant to manage it this time." Whether Mr So-and-So provided cigars for theological pupils I did not inquire; I was too much sickened by Maxey's presence,--so much so that it was really a relief when I was summoned in my turn to the Bishop's apartment. I passed through a long passage, then through an ante-room; lastly, a door opened, and displayed his lordship sitting solemnly at a large green table. The chaplain was leaving the room just as my name was announced. I saw him put his hand to his mouth, and distinctly heard him whisper in a loud aside--"_Plucked in_ 18--, my Lord." The Bishop's face assumed an expression of yet more awful solemnity. He gravely motioned me to sit down, and then, looking me full in the eyes, said--"Ah hem! I have no doubt, Mr Pennefather, you have sufficiently prepared yourself for the--hem--important office you propose to take on yourself. I am sorry to say that this--ah!--hem--most important office is often entered upon without sufficient--hem-- preparation." A pause. Fluency was not his lordship's forte. But if the moral annihilation of the object addressed is the end and aim of oratory, he proved himself in this case a Demosthenes. He then continued--"Nothing is more--hem--essential to a clergyman than a knowledge of the early history of Christianity. Let me ask you what you know of the Patripassian heresy?" I don't know what I might have answered under other circumstances, but the chaplain's whisper and the Bishop's exordium were too much for me. I could not utter a word. Other questions followed, to which I answered nothing or nonsense. In the end I recollect that his lordship made me a long speech, from which I gathered--it was not difficult to do this, as it consisted of the same sentence repeated in every variety of collocation--that he was very sorry that he could not admit me into orders with such--hem--ah--insufficient preparation.