The person there awaiting him was a man who, though plainly clad in a velveteen shooting-jacket, had an air and mien greatly above those common to the pedestrian visitors of A----. He was tall, and of one of those athletic forms in which vigour in youth is too often followed by corpulence in age. At this period, however, in the full prime of manhood--the ample chest and sinewy limbs, seen to full advantage in their simple and manly dress--could not fail to excite that popular admiration which is always given to strength in the one sex as to delicacy in the other. The stranger was walking impatiently to and fro the small apartment when Mr. Price entered; and then, turning to the clergyman a countenance handsome and striking, but yet more prepossessing from its expression of frankness than from the regularity of its features,--he stopped short, held out his hand, and said, with a gay laugh, as he glanced over the parson's threadbare and slovenly costume, "My poor Caleb!--what a metamorphosis!--I should not have known you again!" "What! you! Is it possible, my dear fellow?--how glad I am to see you! What on earth can bring you to such a place? No! not a soul would believe me if I said I had seen you in this miserable hole." "That is precisely the reason why I am here. Sit down, Caleb, and we'll talk over matters as soon as our landlord has brought up the materials for--" "The milk-punch," interrupted Mr. Price, rubbing his hands. "Ah, that will bring us back to old times, indeed!" In a few minutes the punch was prepared, and after two or three preparatory glasses, the stranger thus commenced: "My dear Caleb, I am in want of your assistance, and above all of your secrecy." "I promise you both beforehand. It will make me happy the rest of my life to think I have served my patron--my benefactor--the only friend I possess." "Tush, man! don't talk of that: we shall do better for you one of these days. But now to the point: I have come here to be married--married, old boy! married!" And the stranger threw himself back in his chair, and chuckled with the glee of a schoolboy. "Humph!" said the parson, gravely. "It is a serious thing to do, and a very odd place to come to." "I admit both propositions: this punch is superb. To proceed. You know that my uncle's immense fortune is at his own disposal; if I disobliged him, he would be capable of leaving all to my brother; I should disoblige him irrevocably if he knew that I had married a tradesman's daughter; I am going to marry a tradesman's daughter--a girl in a million! the ceremony must be as secret as possible. And in this church, with you for the priest, I do not see a chance of discovery." "Do you marry by license?"