alone, were faded into an aspect of miserable pallor: the little man tried to conjure up a smile while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter forth some syllable of unconcern; but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly scared, that Lucy would, despite of herself, have laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a young man who had been seated beside the reverend gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy's entrance, and who now stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of great respect. Blushing deeply, and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily away, and approaching the good Doctor, made her enquiries into the present state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a minute before imagined it possible that she should have been enabled to command.
"Ah, my good young lady," said the Doctor, squeezing her hand, "I—nay, I may say the Church—for am I not its minister?—was in imminent danger;—but this excellent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure. I only lost some of my dues—my rightful dues—for which I console myself with thinking
