As they moved off through the damp old church, Septimus Hardon wondered whether, upon some bright morning half a century before, his father and mother had knelt before that altar and been made one. He sighed as he walked on, meeting in the entrance a tall, gentlemanly--looking man who was passing in. "What's to be done next, Matt?" said Septimus, in a dispirited tone. "Pint of porter and crust o' bread-and-cheese," said the old man decidedly. "I'm faint, sir--got a fit of my chronics; but it's taking me the wrong way to-day; I'm hungry, and you must want support. Keep your chin in the air, sir; we can't win every time. You've had two tries this morning, and one's come all right. That register looks suspicious, certainly; but after all you can't even go and swear that your old people were married in that church; and even if you could, and had the copy of the stiffikit, that ain't all we want, for it don't prove that you weren't a year old then." "Hi!" cried a voice behind them; and upon the cry being repeated, they both turned to find that the old sexton was telegraphing them to come back, by wagging his head in the direction of the church-door. "What's up now?" said old Matt when they reached him. "Parson wants to see you in the westry," was the reply. Anxiously following the old man, Septimus Hardon found himself in the presence of the gentleman he had encountered at the door. "I think," said he, "that you have been complaining of the bad state of our registers, and really we deserve it. I have only been here a few weeks, and have done but little towards getting them right. However, I have quite fifty loose leaves and pieces arranged here ready for pasting back, though I can assure you it is no light task." As he spoke, he took down from a little closet on the wall a heap of damp-stained, ragged, worthless-looking paper, and then set himself to try and help discover the required name. "Hardon," he said,--"Hardon, Octavius Hardon and Lavinia Addison. We'll lay those that are done with down here, if you please; for, though they do not appear so, the leaves are in a certain order. Hardon, Hardon, Octavius, and Lavinia Addison," he kept on muttering, as Septimus and he carefully examined column after column amongst the dilapidated leaves; though Septimus progressed but slowly, for his hand trembled and a mist swam before his eyes. "Take a glass of wine," said the curate kindly, producing a decanter and glass from the little cupboard; "you seem agitated." Septimus took the glass with trembling hand, and then resumed his task with increased energy, till at last there were not above half a dozen leaves to scan, when he uttered an exclamation of joy, for there, upon a scrap before him--torn, stained, and almost illegible--was the sought-for entry, bearing the well-known signature of his father, and the trembling handwriting of his mother.