At last in the very height of our sufferings we obtained in this truly unexpected, not to say whimsical fashion, a brief instant of relief. It was plain that this learned wight was possessed of a mind of the most singular simplicity and inconsequence. Everything that was told him he took for gospel. He had the faith of a child. Everything that had the least interest for himself he felt that all men were languishing to hear of. With him evidently to think was to act; he was the slave of his own whims; no sooner did he mention a thing than he went straightway and performed it. The prospects of being united in the bonds of wedlock by so extraordinary a gentleman were indeed remote; but armed with the knowledge of his character we had already gained, we concluded that if we beat about the bush at all, he would be quite content for his own part to detain us a "month of Sundays" in his library, while he unfolded his facts and propounded his theories. On his own initiative he would not be in the least likely to surrender a single moment to our affairs. We must be bold and decisive, and grapple firmly with him. Therefore when the good parson returned, preceding the umbrageous Blodgett, who bore the Banbury cakes and the gooseberry-wine on a tray, before he had the chance to open his mouth to take up his discourse, says I, in a truly dramatic manner: "If it pleases you, sir, we are here, this lady and I, to ask you to marry us." "Marry you," says he, without a moment's reflection. "I shall be delighted. Blodgett, have the goodness to set down the tray on the top of the _De Imitatione_ there and go and find the clerk, and tell him to open the church. And tut, tut! my good woman, how often must I beseech you not to dust my books with your sacrilegious apron." While Mrs. Blodgett flounced out to find the clerk, and the good parson in the height of his courtesy poured out the gooseberry-wine and served us with it, Cynthia and I fell to talking at the top of our voices about nothing at all, since we were certain that as soon as the parson got an opportunity he would furnish us with a criticism of Strabo's geographies, which, however damaging to that worthy ancient, would be even more so to us; or prove that it was a vulgar error to speak of Castor as the twin of Pollux; and proceed to demonstrate that Achilles was vulnerable in other places than his heel. CHAPTER VIII WE GET US TO CHURCH