be possible to restrain the ardour of the Rev. Decimus by the mundane process of purchasing him a living at home. She had very little doubt of being able to procure him the advantages of heathen society, provided he did not insist on black pagans. Down in Staffordshire now, or in outlying London districts, or among the truly rural population of Devonshire, he might surely find hideous ignorance, crime, and brutish unconsciousness of any thing but the lowest instincts of nature, flourishing as luxuriantly as in the Feejee or the Andaman Islands. If the police reports spoke truth, there was room for the evolutions of a whole noble army of martyrs in picturesque and prosperous England; and Decimus might be quite as useful, while Ellen would be infinitely more safe. So Hester thought about the matter, and came to the conclusion--excusable to her ignorance, and deducible from her experience of the ease with which every thing one wants can be had for money--that a living in British heathendom might be purchased. She did not impart her ideas to Robert Streightley, for she had her own reasons for knowing that he was not in a condition to receive any proposition involving the expenditure of ready-money with much favour just then; but she took Mr. Thacker into her confidence; and as that gentleman's religious persuasion prevented his feeling any scruples concerning a transaction of the kind, he undertook to buy a living for Hester's unconscious _protégé_ with as much alacrity and unconcern as he would have undertaken to hire an opera-box or to match a carriage-horse. "Remember, if you want a presentation likely to fall in soon, you can't get one cheap," was his sole demurrer when Miss Gould explained, with the utmost _näiveté_, the object of her wishes. "I don't want to get it cheap, Mr. Thacker," replied Miss Gould. "Provided it's comfortable, and there's enough to do to keep the pocket-Apostle busy, and it's a wholesome place for Ellen, and not dangerous in the way of strikes and mill-burnings,--I am content. I don't think I should like it _too_ rural and picturesque, please, because the murders in places of that sort are always so very horrible." "By Jove! she gives me her directions as if it were a semi-detached villa with a good croquet-lawn she wanted," said Mr. Thacker, as he left Hester's presence, having cheerfully undertaken the somewhat difficult task she had imposed upon him. "There's nothing on earth to equal the unreasonableness of even the most reasonable woman, and she certainly is that. Not bad for an unconscious bit of satire either on Christian notions in general,--would be nuts to some of our people, I daresay."