as little professional as possible. Mr. Stainforth was of the good old order of the squire-parson, the clerical country gentleman who respects abuses which are venerable, and deprecates any great eagerness about the way to heaven. Perhaps he had not very distinct views about heaven at all. Now and then he would preach a sermon about golden gates, and harps, and shining raiment, but it was seldom, if ever, of his own composition. In his own practice he thought it best to think as little about dying as possible, and he did not try to impose a different rule on his neighbours. He thought that it would most likely all come right somehow or other in the end, and that in the meantime there was not much good to be done by too much dwelling on the subject, which indeed is a view of the subject which a great many people are disposed to take. He had lived long enough to see all his sons and daughters established in life, which was a great matter. He had two girls who were very well married, and two sons with capital appointments, besides Frank, who was scrambling for his living somehow, and could manage to “get on”--and Dolly, who was too young to cost very much. There was enough to provide for Dolly when the rector should die--and he felt that he had fully done his duty to his family. And he had done his duty to his parish. There was no more dissent than was inevitable; and Mr. Stainforth treated it as inevitable, and did not interfere with it. He was very reasonable on this subject--so reasonable that the curates he had generally disagreed with him violently; and he was at the present period taking the duty alone, though it was somewhat laborious, rather than attempt to regulate the young assistant priest who set up confessions, or the muscular young parson who instituted games. “Let the people alone,” was Mr. Stainforth’s rule, to which these hot-headed young neophytes without experience would give no faith. Sometimes he would be quite eloquent on the subject. “Let the chapel alone,” he would say. “What can we do in the Church with the emotions, especially among the poor? A washerwoman who has feelings wants her chapel. It makes her a great deal happier than you or I could do. All that does the Church good. And let the others peg away at me if they please. It keeps Spicer amused, and keeps him out of more mischief.” Spicer was the village grocer, against whom all the young men hurled themselves and their arguments in vain. But the rector dealt with Spicer, and always had a chat with him when he passed the shop-door. There was a mutual respect between them.