"No mistake, madam, at all. I am that Dr. Shovel before whom the smaller pretenders in these Liberties give place and hide diminished heads. If by any unlucky accident your lover has fallen a prey to some of those (self-styled) clerical gentry, who are in fact impostors and sharpers, we will speedily rescue him from their talons. Describe the gentleman, madam, and my messenger shall go and seek him at the Pen and Hand, or at some other notorious place." The clerk, meanwhile, had placed himself beside his master, and now produced a greasy Prayer-book, with the aid of which, I suppose, he meant to give the responses of the Church. At the mention of the word "mistake" a look of doubt and anxiety crossed his face. "There is, indeed, some mistake, sir," I repeated. "My errand here is not of the kind you think." "Then, madam, your business with me must be strange indeed. Sirrah!" he addressed his clerk, in a voice of thunder, "hast thou been playing the fool? What was it this young lady sought of you?" "Oh, sir! this good person is not to blame, perhaps. Are you indeed the Rev. Gregory Shovel, Doctor of Divinity?" "No other, madam." He spread out both his arms, proudly lifting his gown, so that he really seemed to cover the whole of the end of the room. "No other: I assure you I am Dr. Gregory Shovel, known and beloved by many a happy pair." "And the brother-in-law of the late Reverend Lawrence Pleydell, late vicar of----" He interrupted me. "Late vicar? Is, then, my brother-in-law dead? or have they, which is a thing incredible, conferred preferment upon sheer piety?" "Alas! sir," I cried, with tears, "my father is dead." "Thy father, child!" "Yes, sir; I am Kitty Pleydell, at your service." "Kitty Pleydell!" He bent over me across the table, and looked into my face not unkindly. "My sister's child! then how----" He turned upon his clerk, who now stood with staring eyes and open mouth, chapfallen and terrified. "FOOL!" he thundered. "Get thee packing, lest I do thee a mischief!" CHAPTER V. HOW KITTY WITNESSED A FLEET WEDDING. Then I pulled out my father's letter, and gave it to him to read. He took it, read it carefully, nodding gravely over each sentence, and then returned it to me.