Dr M‘Murdo was well on towards his fiftieth year. His hair and beard were already grizzled, while his once fair complexion was deeply tanned by many years of torrid sunshine. He was a tall, lean, high-dried man, somewhat formal and old-fashioned in his attire, with an expression of mingled shrewdness and good-humour. His friend, the Rev. Septimus Gaisford, was about the same age as himself, and had been the vicar of a small country parish in the Midlands for nearly a quarter of a century. He belonged to the homely, unobtrusive type of country parson of which, even in these days of unrest and innovation, specimens happily are still to be found. He looked after the needs of his poorer parishioners both spiritual and temporal, and left the well-to-do pretty much to themselves. He abounded in good works in a quiet unostentatious way, while his Sunday discourses were as homely as himself and such as could always be ‘understanded of the people.’ Like his friend the doctor, he had never ventured on the perilous sea of matrimony. But the vicar was not without a worthy coadjutor and companion in his parochial labours. His sister, Miss Gaisford, who was ten years younger than himself, not only managed his small household, but looked after such portion of his parish duties as can often be performed better by a woman than a man, while it was even whispered that she occasionally wrote his sermons for him. So that, all things considered, it was no wonder the Rev. Septimus had more than once been heard to remark that ‘Pen’—short for Penelope, if you please—was far more useful to him than any curate he had ever had. For the rest, Miss Pen was a bright-eyed, vivacious little body, not in the least inclined to be sanctimonious, but fond of a joke and a laugh, yet with an innate fund of sympathy about her which by some attraction of its own seemed to draw all who were in trouble or difficulty to her side. On this sunny afternoon, the doctor and the vicar were seated one at each end of a rustic bench in the shade of a leafy elm. The former had his thumb in the pages of a medical review, to which, however, he was paying but scant attention; while the latter was mending his fishing-tackle, for our worthy parson was a genuine brother of the angle. At a small rustic table a little distance away sat Miss Gaisford, busy with her writing, but not so busy as to preclude her from taking an interest in any topic which the others might introduce. Presently she looked up, and as if in answer to the doctor’s last remark, she said: ‘I am quite aware that we poor mortals who have the misfortune to live south of the Tweed are very badly off as regards many things. Still, we do now and then manage to produce an article which even you cool-blooded Northerners can’t help admiring, and would find it difficult to excel.’ ‘The application, my dear madam, the application. To what particular article do you refer?’