"I can't get that poor fellow, Lloyd, out of my head," I said, changing the subject. "That was a pitiful letter. And the pity is that a strictly private document, such as that was, should see the light and be discussed fifty years after it was written, by two priests on the west coast of Ireland To whom did he write it?" "To Sir Robert Peel, then Prime Minister." "There was a dear old friend of my youth," I said, "who was fond of giving advice. I suppose I picked up the evil habit from him. But his summary of all wisdom was this:-- "Never consult a doctor! "Never go security! "Never write a letter that may not be read in the market square!" "I hope you have followed this sapient, but rather preternatural advice," said Father Letheby. "No," I replied. "It would have been well for me if I had done so." We both lapsed into a brown study. "It is not easy for us priests to take advice," he said at last; "I suppose our functions are so magisterial that we cannot understand even the suggestion of inferiority in reproof. Was it not Dean Stanley who said that the Anglican clergy are polished into natural perfection by domestic interchanges of those silent corrections that are so necessary, and that it is the absence of these correctives that accounts for the so many nodes and excrescences of our social characteristics?" "True. But we won't take correction. Or rather, no one dare give it. The Bishop can and will; but then a word from a bishop smites like a Nasmyth hammer, and he is necessarily slow of reproof. A Parish priest nowadays dare not correct a curate--" "I beg pardon, sir," Father Letheby said; "I am sure you'll do me an infinite favor if you kindly point out my many imprudences and inconsistencies." "And you'll take it well?" "Well," he said dubiously, "I won't promise that I shall not be nettled. But I'll take it respectfully." "All right. We'll commence this moment. Give up that coffee-drinking, and take an honest glass of punch."