"Take care of your tongue, Marshall," admonished St. John, who made one of the throng. "I _am_ blowed, though!" returned Marshall. "_Did_ anybody ever see such a go as this?" "What's the row?" demanded Hennet, a fine youth, one of Mr. Wilberforce's private pupils, and who only now came up. "Oh, my! you should have been here, Hennet," responded Marshall. "We have got a lord, or something else, among us. The Dean of Westerbury has been bowing down to worship him." Hennet, not understanding, looked at St. John. "No. Trash!" explained St. John. "Marshall is putting his tongue and his foot into it to-day. I'm off to breakfast." The word excited anticipations of the meal, and all the rest were off to breakfast too--making the grounds echo with their shouts as they ran. CHAPTER XVI. A CITY'S DESOLATION. Henry Arkell had been in the college school rather more than a year, and also in the choir--for he entered the two almost simultaneously, his fine voice obtaining him the place before any other candidate--when the rank and fashion of Westerbury found itself in a state of internal, pleasurable commotion, touching an amateur concert about to be given for the benefit of the distressed Poles. Mrs. Lewis, the daughter of the late Squire Carr, Mrs. Aultane, and a few more of the lesser satellites residing near the cathedral clergy, suddenly found themselves, from some cause never clearly explained to Westerbury, aroused into a state of sympathy and compassion for that ill-starred country, Poland, and its ill-used inhabitants. Casting about in their minds what they could do to help those _miserables_--the French word slipped out at my pen's end--they alighted on the idea of an amateur morning concert, and forthwith set about organizing one. Painting in glowing colours the sufferings and hardships of this distant people, they contrived to gain the ear of the good-natured dean, and of Mrs. St. John of the Palmery, and the rest was easy. Canons and minor canons followed suit; all the gentry of the place took the concert under their especial patronage; and everybody with the slightest pretension to musical skill, intimated that they were ready to assist in the performances, if called upon. In fact, the miniature scheme grew into a gigantic undertaking; and no expense, trouble, or time was spared in the getting up of this amateur concert. Ladies of local rank and fashion were to sing at it; the mayor accorded the use of the guildhall; and Westerbury had not been in so delightful a state of excited anticipation for years and years.