a few minutes after the bishop came in, and addressed me with, "Qu'est-ce que vous demandez, Monsieur?"[2] Again, thought I, my country is about to be lost to me; but let us hope for a better. I told Dr. Douglass the purport of my visit: he, seeing the affair was one not quickly to be dispatched, requested me to walk up stairs. We seated ourselves on each side of the fire in an old-fashioned wainscotted room with corresponding furniture, the floor half covered by a well-worn Turkey carpet. On the walls, yellow with smoke, hung portraits, which, through the soot that incrusted them, I hardly discerned to be ecclesiastical worthies; Cardinal Allen, perhaps, founder of the college of Douay; a Campion, or Arrowsmith, or other martyrs of the Reformation. A crucifix was set in a conspicuous place: over the chimney a little engraving of Pius VI, then a prisoner. The bishop was a tall thin man, between sixty and seventy, of a healthy look, with a lively and good-natured countenance: he wore a suit of black, not very fresh, with a little, close, white wig. Martinus Scriblerus was proud of being able to form an abstract idea of a Lord Mayor without his gold chain, or red gown, or any other _accidents_. I had no difficulty in detecting the bishop in the plain man before me; for, being in his own house, he showed without reserve his pectoral cross, and I saw on his finger a ring in which was set an amethyst. "This is a very important step, sir; no doubt you have given it due consideration." I gave a succinct account of my studies and motives. "May I ask, have you consulted your family and friends?"--"My parents are not living: I am their only surviving child. For my friends, I know beforehand what they would say."--"Are you aware of all the _civil_ consequences? The penal laws are repealed; but you will lose your _état civil_." I bowed my head. "As you are in orders of the church of England, your conversion will excite more than ordinary surprise, and (I say it only to warn you,) ill-will against you."--"I trust not; people are sufficiently indifferent about such matters."--"Perhaps you will lose some ecclesiastical benefice?"--"I have proceeded no further than deacon's orders, and therefore have no preferment."--"But your expectations?"--"I must live without them."