... "In closing, permit me to say, sir, that it would be agreeable to us to welcome among us the grandson of our first pastor, that young rector who died in the bud of his youth and Christian originality. The fact of your ancestry will give to your presence a peculiar interest for our people at large. But I beg to be allowed to add on behalf of the committee, that certain qualities in yourself and in your own work have led us to believe that you may exert positive influences upon us of which we stand in need. In your remote and rural parish your life has not passed unobserved. Your labors as a pastor, and your methods of preaching, have been an object of study to some of us. We have come to rate you, sir, as one of the men of God. There are not many. In meeting with our people, the writer personally hopes that you may be able to teach us something of the secret of your own happy and successful experience as a minister of Christ our Lord." ... The old clergyman sat with his feet upon the base of his little cylinder coal-stove. His thin ankles shrank in the damp stockings which he had not been able to change since he came in out of the storm, because, owing to some personal preference of the laundress, he could not find any dry ones. His worn slippers flapped upon his cold feet when he moved. But he had on his flowered dressing-gown of ancient pattern and rustic cut; his high arm-chair was cushioned in chintz and excelsior behind his aching head; the green paper shade was on his study-lamp; his best-beloved books (for the old saint was a student) lay within reach upon the table; piled upon them were his manuscript sermons; and he sighed with the content of a man who feels himself to be, although unworthy, in the loving arms of luxury. A rap at the door undeceived him. His landlady put in her withered face. "Sir," she said, "the widder Peek's a-dying. It's just like her to take a night like this--but she's sent for you. I must say I don't call you fit to go." "A man is always fit to do his duty," said the old clergyman, rising. "I will go at once. Did she send--any--conveyance?" "Catch her!" retorted the landlady. "Why, she hain't had the town water let in yet--and she wuth her fifteen thousand dollars; nor she won't have no hired girl to do for her, not that none of 'em will stay along of her a week, and Dobson's boy 's at the door, a drippin' and cussin' to get you, for he 's nigh snowed under. She 's a wuthless old heathen miser, the widder Peek." "Then there is every reason why I should not neglect her," replied the clergyman, in his authoritative, clerical voice. "Pray call the lad in from the weather, and tell him I will accompany him at once."