The clergyman himself was not there; but there were two persons in the room, one a young and somewhat dashing-looking man, one or two and twenty years of age, exceedingly handsome both in face and figure; the other personage past the middle age, thin, pale, eager and keen-looking, in whom Sir Philip instantly recognized a well known, but not very well reputed attorney, of a country town about twenty miles distant. They had one of the large parish books before them, and were both bending over it with great appearance of earnestness. The step of Sir Philip Hastings roused them, and turning round, the attorney bowed law, saying, "I give you good day, Sir Philip. I hope I have the honor of seeing you well." "Quite so," was the brief reply, and it was followed by an inquiry for the pastor, who it seemed had gone into another room for some papers which were required. In the mean time the younger of the two previous occupants of the room had been gazing at Sir Philip Hastings with a rude, familiar stare, which the object of it did not remark; and in another moment the clergyman himself appeared, carrying a bundle of old letters in his hand. He was a heavy, somewhat timid man, the reverse of his predecessor in all things, but a very good sort of person upon the whole. On seeing the baronet there, however, something seemed strangely to affect him--a sort of confused surprise, which, after various stammering efforts, burst forth as soon as the usual salutation was over, in the words, "Pray, Sir Philip, did you come by appointment?" Sir Philip Hastings, as the reader already knows, was a somewhat unobservant man of what was passing around him in the world. He had his own deep, stern trains of thought, which he pursued with a passionate earnestness almost amounting to monomania. The actions, words, and even looks of those few in whom he took an interest, he could sometimes watch and comment on in his own mind with intense study. True, he watched without understanding, and commented wrongly; for he had too little experience of the motives of others from outward observation, and found too little sympathy with the general motives of the world, in his own heart, to judge even those he loved rightly. But the conduct, the looks, the words of ordinary men, he hardly took the trouble of remarking; and the good parson's surprise and hesitation, passed like breath upon a mirror, seen perhaps, but retaining no hold upon his mind for a moment. Neither did the abrupt question surprise him; nor the quick, angry look which it called up on the face of the attorney attract his notice; but he replied quietly to Mr. Dixwell, "I do not remember having made any appointment with you." The matter was all well so far; and would have continued well; but the attorney, a meddling fellow, had nearly spoiled all, by calling the attention of Philip Hastings more strongly to the strangeness of the clergyman's question.