"I'm thinkin' you're in for somethin'," she said. "And no wondher! I niver knew a man to timpt Providence like you. Will you have the hot wather, as you ate nothin'?" "Don't mind, Hannah. I'll have a cup of tea by and by." I sat down to the fire, looking into all its glowing crevices and crannies, thinking, thinking of many things. By and by, in came Father Letheby. He was subdued and deferential, but evidently very much hurt at my unaccustomed rudeness. He stood with his back to the fire, looking down on me, and he said, in his best Sunday accent, smoothed and ironed:-- "I confess, sir, I am still quite at a loss to understand your rather--well--forcible remarks this evening. I can see, certainly, a great deal of reason in your irritation; and I am not at all disposed to contravene the principle that you have an indefeasible right to be acquainted with the sorrows and trials of your parishioners; but pardon me for saying it, I was only carrying out, perhaps too logically, your own reiterated teaching." "Look here," said I, "have you had your dinner?" "Yes, sir," said he. "Well, then, sit down, and have your coffee here. Touch that bell." He sat down, and somehow this took a lot of the starch out of him. "You were saying something," said I, "about my teaching. When did I ever teach you to keep the most vital interests of these poor people a secret from me?" "Well," said he, balancing the sugar in his spoon over the cup, "if there was one lesson more than another that was continually dinned into my ears, it was: 'When a young man comes into a strange parish, he must be all eyes and ears, but no tongue,' and I think you quoted some grave authorities for that aphorism." [Illustration: "Was there anything wrong with the chicken?"] "Quite so," I replied. "I think it is a most wholesome advice. For there never yet was a young man that was not disposed to think that he could run a parish better than all the pastors that lived for generations there. But did you understand me to say that we were never to talk over and discuss parochial affairs?" "Well, I confess," said he, "I did not. But you see, sir, your thoughts were running in quite another channel. You were interested in the classics and in literary matters." "My conscience, my dear boy, has already made me aware of that, and in somewhat more forcible and less polite language than you have used. Now, I admit that I have been a surly old curmudgeon this afternoon, and I am sorry for it; but hereafter, don't leave me in the dark any longer about my parishioners. It seems to me that, if we dropped our occasional uncharitableness about each other and our more occasional criticisms on our superiors, and addressed ourselves to the work God gives us to do in that limited circle He has drawn about us, it would be all the better."