great library; it would be very pretty to see what havoc it would make among dedications and protestations, and all that sort of thing. It is very certain however, by way of bringing back our digression to the point from which it started, that Mr Darnley, under the influence of that revealer of secrets, would be found vituperating that very feature in the British constitution which he so very often professed to admire. Mr Pringle was received by Mr Darnley with great politeness. Mr Darnley was polite to everybody. Those people do not know how to be proud who manifest their pride by rudeness and ill-humour; for repulsive as vulgar haughtiness may be, it can never keep encroachment so effectually at a distance as cold politeness and graceful formality. Mr Pringle was desirous of imitating Mr Darnley’s politeness, but he felt that the imitation looked like imitation; and he was therefore more desirous of inducing the rector of Neverden to dismiss his repulsive reserve, and to admit his brother clergyman to an equality of intimacy. But this was not so easily effected as Mr Pringle wished. For Mr Darnley, at this very interview of which we are now speaking, shewed symptoms that he regarded Mr Pringle’s call as a matter of business rather than of compliment. There is a mode of looking upon a caller which seems to ask what is his business, and yet in that look there is nothing unpolite or positively rude. So did the rector of Neverden look upon the rector of Smatterton, who felt himself much mortified that, after all the pains that he had taken to become an indolent gentleman, he could not thoroughly enjoy the pleasures either of indolence or gentility. This look and manner on the part of Mr Darnley considerably repressed the fluency with which Mr Pringle would otherwise have talked on common-place matters, and thereby compelled him, sooner than he had designed, to intimate that he had some matter of importance to communicate. The two clergymen thereupon adjourned to the library. Then Mr Pringle looked important; but with all his efforts he could not look quite so magnificent as Mr Darnley. And taking out of his pocket a letter, the reverend rector of Smatterton addressed himself solemnly and gravely to the reverend rector of Neverden. “I have called upon you, Mr Darnley, on a very unpleasant business, and indeed I hardly know how I can with any propriety ask your assistance in the affair, for it concerns a parishioner of mine; but it is one with whom you have been longer acquainted than I have.” Here Mr Pringle paused, hoping and expecting that Mr Darnley would anticipate by conjecture; but the rector of Neverden merely bowed and said; “And what is the affair to which you allude?” “I believe, sir,” resumed Mr Pringle, “you are acquainted with Mr Primrose, who is now residing at the rectory at Smatterton?”