mother and father, and master of the servants. And they were very happy, _but_--they didn't quite like it. And--and"--(_with a great burst_) "_you_ wouldn't like it if _your_ mother were to die! And I'll end it next Sunday. Let us sing." "The congregation then sung 'Curly Locks,'" said Marion, "and dispersed; Ernest complaining that Charley gave them such large qualities of numbers, and there weren't so many in the whole of his book. After a brief interval the sermon was resumed." "Text is No. 66. I've a good congregation! I got to where the children did not like it without their mother and father. Well, you must remember this was a long while ago, so what I'm going to speak about _could_ be possible. Well, their house was on the top of a high and steep hill; and at the bottom, a little from the hill, was a knight's house. There were three knights living in it. Next to it was stables with three horses in it. Sometimes they went up to this house, and wondered what was in it. 'They never knew, but saw the angels come. The knights were out all day, and only came home for meals. And they wondered what _on earth_ the angels were doin', goin' in the house. They found out _what_--what, and the question was--I'll explain what it was. Ernest, come here." (_Ernest remarks to the audience_, "I'm curate," _and to Charles_, "Well, but, Charles, you're going to explain, you know;" _and Charles resumes_.) "The fact was, that this was--if you'd like to explain it more to yourselves, you'd better look in your books, No. 1828. Before, the angels didn't speak loud, so the knights couldn't hear; _now_ they spoke louder, so that the knights could visit them, 'cause they knew their names. They hadn't many visitors, but they had the knights in there, and that's all." I am still very much afraid that all this nonsense will hardly be interesting, even to parents. But I may as well suffer for a sheep as a lamb; and, as I had an opportunity of hearing two such sermons myself not long after, I shall give them, trusting they will occupy far less space in print than they do in my foolish heart. It was Ernest who was in the pulpit and just commencing his discourse when I entered the nursery, and sat down with the congregation. Sheltered by a clothes-horse, apparently set up for a screen, I took out my pencil, and reported on a fly-leaf of the book I had been reading:-- "My brother was goin' to preach about the wicked: I will preach about the good. Twenty-sixth day. In the time of Elizabeth there was a very old house. It was so old that it was pulled down, and a quite new one was built instead. Some people who lived in it did not like it so much now as they did when it was old. I take their part, you know, and think they were quite right in preferring the old one to the ugly, bare, new one. They left it--sold it--and got into another old house instead." Here, I am sorry to say, his curate interjected the scornful remark,-- "He's not lookin' in the book a bit!"