"But I do _not_ believe it to be the best word, my dear sir," repeated the subdean, and took the hand of the retired gentleman with a smile,--seeing they were about to separate; "I believe we should be madmen indeed if we did not yield wisely to this spirit of change. You will never find me among the advocates of rash and hasty changes, Mr. Nixon; but I repeat--change has begun,--and if we do not yield to it wisely, it will speedily proceed more rashly and hastily than any of us would wish to see. All parties are amalgamating, for they are blending names; and all ranks are converging to a common point, where rank will be forgotten. Forty years ago you could not have imagined that a cathedral dignitary would have walked from the 'Chequer Gate to St. Botolph's Bar, and not one of the hundreds of poor men he met ever touch their hat to him;--and yet you have walked with me every inch of the way this morning, and seen every poor man pass by without showing the subdean any more respect than he shows to one of his ragged neighbours:--you have seen this, Mr. Nixon, and you cannot deny that _it was so_. Good morning, sir!" "Good morning, sir!" echoed Mr. Nicholas Nixon, though it was somewhat vacantly. And thrice he turned to look after the clergyman when they had separated,--stunned and confounded as he felt at what the dignitary had said; and then wondered how it could be! But the more Mr. Nicholas wondered, the less he could comprehend what he wondered at. He knew that he himself was what he was thirty years ago,--the same old-fashioned Tory, who, even then, lived each day alike, in the same house in the Minster-yard; but as for the subdean and many others, though he perceived they had changed, he could not comprehend why:--all that he could comprehend was,--that _it was so_. SIGNS OF THE TIMES; OR, ONE PARSON AND TWO CLERKS. It was at the very time,--for History is notoriously fond of synchronisms for her greatest events,--witness Mycale and Platæa, fought and won on the self-same day,--it was at the very time that Papineau and the Canadian rebels took up swords and guns to resist Sir John Colborne and the English troops,--that the old women of Stow, in the parts of Lindsey, took up eggs to pelt the parish parson!