about were in the church, and the young man was just under the pulpit, with the eyes of the whole congregation turned on him. The sermon had its effect--he reverted to his love, and without any dissimulation, we trust, married her. The Christmas and the Easter decorations in this old fellow's church were very wonderful. There was a Christmas text, and that did service also for Easter. The decorating of the church was intrusted to the schoolmaster, a lame man, and his wife, and consisted in a holly or laurel crutch set up on one side of the chancel, and a "jaws of death" on the other. This appalling symbol was constructed like a set of teeth in a dentist's shop-window--the fangs were made of snipped or indented white drawing paper, and the gums of overlapping laurel leaves stitched down one on the other. A very good story was told of this old parson, which is, I believe, quite true. He was invited to spend a couple of days with a great squire some miles off. He went, stayed his allotted time, and disappeared. Two days later the lady of the house, happening to go into the servants'-hall in the evening, found, to her amazement, her late guest--there. After he had finished his visit up-stairs, at the invitation of the butler he spent the same time below. "Like Persephone, madam," he said,--"half my time above, half in the nether world." In the matter of personal neatness he left much to be desired. His walled garden was famous for its jargonelle pears. Lady X--, one day coming over, said to him, "Will you come back in my carriage with me, and dine at the Park? You can stay the night, and be driven home to-morrow." "Thank you, my lady, delighted. I will bring with me some jargonelles. I'll go and fetch them." Presently he returned with a little open basket and some fine pears in it. Lady X-- looked at him, with a troubled expression in her sweet face. The rector was hardly in dining suit; moreover, there was apparent no equipment for the night. "Dear Mr. M--, will you not _really_ want something further? You will dine with us, _and sleep the night_." A vacant expression stole over his countenance, as he retired into himself in thought. Presently a flash of intelligence returned, and he said with briskness, "Ah! to be sure; I'll go and fetch two or three more jargonelles." A kind, good-hearted man the scholar-parson was, always ready to put his hand into his pocket at a tale of distress, but quite incapable of understanding that his parishioners might have spiritual as well as material requirements. I remember a case of a very similar man--a fellow of his college, and professor at Cambridge--to whom a young student ventured to open some difficulties and doubts that tortured him. "Difficulties! doubts!" echoed the old gentleman. "Take a couple of glasses of port. If that don't dispel them, take two more, and continue the dose till you have found ease of mind."