of such a limited and jealous coterie--people proud of their liberality to the chapel, and altogether unable to comprehend the feelings of a sensitive and cultivated mind--could be an agreeable prospect to the young man. Their very approbation chafed him; and if he went beyond their level, or exceeded their narrow limit, what mercy was he to expect, what justice, what measure of comprehension? He went home with a bitterness of disgust in his mind far more intense and tragical than appeared to be at all necessary in the circumstances, and which only the fact that this was his first beginning in real life, and that his imagination had never contemplated the prominent position of the butter-shop and the Devonshire Dairy, in what he fondly called his new sphere, could have justified. Perhaps no new sphere ever came up to the expectations of the neophyte; but to come, if not with too much gospel, yet with an intellectual Christian mission, an evangelist of refined nonconformity, an apostle of thought and religious opinion, and to sink suddenly into "coorses" of sermons and statistics of seat-letting in Salem--into tea-parties of deacons' wives, and singing-classes--into the complacent society of those good people who were conscious of doing so much for the chapel and supporting the minister--that was a downfall not to be lightly thought of. Salem itself, and the new pulpit, which had a short time ago represented to poor Vincent that tribune from which he was to influence the world, that point of vantage which was all a true man needed for the making of his career, dwindled into a miserable scene of trade before his disenchanted eyes--a preaching shop, where his success was to be measured by the seat-letting, and his soul decanted out into periodical issue under the seal of Tozer & Co. Such, alas! were the indignant thoughts with which, the old Adam rising bitter and strong within him, the young Nonconformist hastened home. And She was Lady Western--the gayest and brightest and highest luminary in all the society of Carlingford. As well love the moon, who no longer descends to Endymion, as lift presumptuous eyes to that sweeter planet which was as much out of reach of the Dissenting minister. Poor fellow! his room did not receive a very cheerful inmate when he shut the door upon the world and sat down with his thoughts. CHAPTER V.