“Oh dear, no sir; on Monday morning he was as well as you are at this moment. But it happened very curiously, that last Sunday Mr. Martindale came to church, and I preached a sermon on the uncertainty of human life. It is a sermon that I generally preach at this time of year. But Mr. Martindale, who was not much in the habit of attending church, had by some strange fatality heard this sermon twice before. Now, you know, sir,” continued Mr. Denver, addressing himself to Mr. Markham, “that our late friend was not much in the habit of taking notice of sermons. He used to say, in his odd manner, that one sermon was as good as another, for they all gave more good advice than any of the hearers followed. Well, sir, he sent for me, as I was saying, and as soon as I entered the room, (he was sitting in the bow-windowed drawing-room that overlooks the park,) he rose from the sofa, on which he usually sat, between the fire-place and window, and he took me by the hand, and without giving me time to speak, he drew a chair with his other hand, and almost pushed me into it, saying, ‘There, sit down, I want to talk to you.’ So I waited a few seconds, and then said, ‘I shall be exceedingly happy to attend to any commands which you may think fit to honor me with.’ Without making any direct answer to what I said, and as if he was not aware that I had spoken at all, he said, ‘How often have you preached that sermon which I heard yesterday?’ I smiled at the singularity of the question--Mr. Martindale used, you know, to ask very singular questions--and I said in answer, ‘I cannot tell exactly how often; but it has not been preached, I believe, oftener than any other.’--‘Perhaps not,’ he replied immediately; ‘but as I have heard it three times, it sounded to me yesterday as a kind of warning, and I have a notion that I am not far from my end.’ I tried all I could to divert his mind from such gloomy thoughts, but nothing that I could say produced any effect whatever. I said to him, ‘I hope, sir, that you do not feel yourself unwell.’--‘Unwell!’ he replied, ‘to be sure I do. I am an old man; and old age is a disease that must end in death.’--‘But, sir,’ said I again, ‘though you may be advanced in years, yet you enjoy a tolerably good state of health; and there are many persons much older than you who enjoy a very great share of health and a good flow of spirits, and why then, sir, should you cherish such gloomy thoughts?’” Here Mr. Denver paused for a moment, and his countenance changed to a still graver expression, when clasping his hands together, and then spreading them out, and lifting up his eyes, he resumed his narrative, saying,