The benevolent Mr. Marshal seized the moment when he saw Mr. Hill’s heart was touched, and exclaimed, “I must be acquainted with this Mr. O’Neill. I am sure we people of Hereford ought to show some hospitality to a stranger, who has so much humanity. Mr. Hill, will you dine with him to-morrow at my house?” Mr. Hill was just going to accept of this invitation, when the recollection of all he had said to his club about the hole under the cathedral came across him; and, drawing Mr. Marshal aside, he whispered, “But sir, sir, that affair of the hole under the cathedral has not been cleared up yet.” At this instant, the widow Smith exclaimed, “Oh! here comes my little Mary” (one of her children, who came running in): “this is the little girl, sir, to whom the lady has been so good. Make your curtsy, child. Where have you been all this while?” “Mammy,” said the child, “I’ve been showing the lady my rat.” “Lord bless her! Gentlemen, the child has been wanting me this many a day to go to see this tame rat of hers; but I could never get time, never: and I wondered too at the child’s liking such a creature. Tell the gentlemen, dear, about your rat. All I know is, that, let her have but never such a tiny bit of bread, for breakfast or supper, she saves a little of that little for this rat of hers: she and her brothers have found it out somewhere by the cathedral.” “It comes out of a hole under the wall of the cathedral,” said one of the elder boys; “and we have diverted ourselves watching it, and sometimes we have put victuals for it, so it has grown, in a manner, tame like.” Mr. Hill and Mr. Marshal looked at one another during this speech; and the dread of ridicule again seized on Mr. Hill, when he apprehended that, after all he had said, the mountain might, at last, bring forth--a rat. Mr. Marshal, who instantly saw what passed in the verger’s mind, relieved him from this fear, by refraining even from a smile on this occasion. He only said to the child, in a grave manner, “I am afraid, my dear, we shall be obliged to spoil your diversion. Mr. Verger, here, cannot suffer rat-holes in the cathedral: but, to make you amends for the loss of your favourite, I will give you a very pretty little dog, if you have a mind.”