While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's eye glancing round the room discovered in an armchair the round and oily little person of Dr. Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of miserable pallor. The little man tried to conjure up a smile while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter forth some syllable of unconcern; but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly scared that Lucy would, despite herself, have laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a young man who had been seated beside the reverend gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy's entrance, and who now stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of great respect. Blushing deeply and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily away, and approaching the good doctor, made her inquiries into the present state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a minute before imagined it possible that she should have been enabled to command. “Ah! my good young lady,” said the doctor, squeezing her hand, “I--may, I may say the church--for am I not its minister? was in imminent danger--but this excellent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure. I only lost some of my dues,--my rightful dues,--for which I console myself with thinking that the infamous and abandoned villain will suffer hereafter.” “There cannot be the least doubt of that,” said the young man. “Had he only robbed the mail-coach, or broken into a gentleman's house, the offence might have been expiable; but to rob a clergyman, and a rector too!--Oh, the sacrilegious dog!” “Your warmth does you honour, sir,” said the doctor, beginning now to recover; “and I am very proud to have made the acquaintance of a gentleman of such truly religious opinions.” “Ah!” cried the stranger, “my foible, sir,--if I may so speak,--is a sort of enthusiastic fervour for the Protestant Establishment. Nay, sir, I never come across the very nave of the church without feeling an indescribable emotion--a kind of sympathy, as it were--with--with--you understand me, sir--I fear I express myself ill.” “Not at all, not at all!” exclaimed the doctor: “such sentiments are uncommon in one so young.” “Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and preceptor of mine, Mr. MacGrawler, and I trust they may continue with me to my dying day.” Here the doctor's servant entered with (we borrow a phrase from the novel of ----------) “the tea-equipage;” and Mrs. Slopperton, betaking herself to its superintendence, inquired with more composure than hitherto had belonged to her demeanour, what sort of a looking creature the ruffian was.