As certainly as I said anything, or advanced an opinion, he, as certainly, contradicted me, taking the opposite side of the question. This, of course, made me angry and unamiable. He was so obstinately obtuse, too, that he would not take a hint. He must have seen that his company was not wanted, by me at least, and that I did not desire any conversation with him. I've no doubt of his doing it on purpose! He prided himself on his eminently practical mind, being incapable of seeing romance even in the works of nature and nature's God; and he was continually cutting jokes at my "sentimentality," as he was pleased to style my more poetical views of life and its surroundings. Whenever I gave him the chance, he was safe to slide in some of his vulgar bathos after any heroic sentiment or personal opinion I may have uttered. This, naturally, would rouse my temper, never very pacific; and made me so cross, that I was often on the verge of quarrelling with Min on his account! The worst of it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear the unprovoked assaults of my bearish brusquerie--making me, as a matter of course, appear in a very unfavourable light. I remember, one day in particular, when he was so exceedingly irritating to me, that he goaded me on into addressing him quite rudely. Min was very much distressed at my behaviour, remonstrating with me for it; and this did not of course make me feel more kindly-disposed towards the curate, who had now become my perfect antipathy. We had been down to the church--Miss Pimpernell, the Dasher girls, Min, and myself,--to hear the organist make trial of a new stop which had been lately added to his instrument. Listening to the small sacred concert that thereupon ensued, we had remained until quite late in the evening; and, on our way home through the churchyard, as we loitered along, looking at the graves, and trying to decipher by the slowly waning light the half illegible inscriptions on the headstones, we came across Mr Mawley. Min and I were walking in front, talking seriously and reflectively, as befitted the time and place. We were moralising how-- "Side by side The poor man and the son of pride Lie calm and still." "I wonder," said Min, "whether it is true that the dust of the departed dead blossoms out again in flowers and trees, replenishing the earth? Just fancy, how many illustrious persons even have died since the beginning of the world! Why, in England alone we could number our heroes by thousands; and it is nice to think that they may still flourish perhaps in these old oak trees above us!" "Ah," said I, "don't you recollect those lines about England;--