just yet I promise you.” To avoid the threatened storm, and satisfy the calls of hunger, Jacob made off to the larder, and commenced an attack upon the leg of mutton. At this moment the Reverend Mr. Stanhope opened the little door at the foot of the stairs--On waking, and finding himself upon a bed, he concluded that he must have fainted in consequence of the agitation of mind produced by the gross insults which he had suffered, or perhaps from the effects of hunger. Great, therefore, was his surprise to find himself at the Red Lion in his own parish; and the first questions he asked of Mrs. Philpot were, how and when he had been brought there. “La, Sir!” said the landlady, “you went up stairs of your own accord, after you were tired of smoking under the tree.”--“Smoking under the tree, woman!” exclaimed Mr. Stanhope; “what are you talking about? Do you recollect whom you are speaking to?”--“Ay, marry, do I,” replied the sensitive Mrs. Philpot; “and you told Sally to call you when Scroggins and Smith came for their gallon of ale, as you meant to join their party.” The Reverend Mr. Stanhope straightway took up his hat, put it upon his head, and stalked with indignant dignity out of the house, opining that the poor woman was in her cups; and meditated as he walked home, on the extraordinary affairs of the day. But his troubles were not yet ended, for the report of his public jollification had reached his own household; and John, his trusty man-servant, had been dispatched to the Red Lion, and had ascertained that his master was really gone to bed in a state very unfit for a clergyman to be seen in. Some remarkably good-natured friends had been to condole with Mrs. Stanhope upon the extraordinary proceedings of her good man, and to say how much they were shocked, and what a pity it was, and wondering what the bishop would think of it, and divers other equally amiable and consolatory reflections and notes of admiration.--Now Mrs. Stanhope, though she had much of the “milk of human kindness” in her composition, had, withal, a sufficient portion of “tartaric acid” mingled therewith. Therefore, when her beer-drinking husband made his appearance, he found her in a state of effervescence. “Mary,” said he “I am extremely fatigued. I have been exposed to-day to a series of insults, such as I could not have imagined it possible for any one to offer me.”