ber of the church, and sings in the choir. He is executor of several estates, and of course takes care of the orphans and widows. He holds the church money in trust, and of course handles it solely to promote its interests. And then he is so deferential, so polite, so charitable. "Never," says the Captain, "did I hear him speak ill of any body, but he lets me into the worst points of my neighbors by jest teching on 'em, and then he excuses their fibles, as if he was kind o' sorry for 'em; but I keeps my eye onto 'em after the hints he give me, and he can't blind me to them."
Harriet Lasciver, formerly Miss Mewker, is a widow, perfectly delicious in dimples and dimity, fond of high life and low-necked dresses, music, birds, and camelias. Captain Belgrave has a great fancy for the charming widow. This is a secret, however. You and I know it, and so does Mewker.
It is Sunday in Little-Crampton—a summer Sunday. The old-fashioned flowers are blooming in the old-fashioned gardens, and the last vibration of the old rusty bell in the century-old belfry seems dying off, and melting away in fragrance. Outside, the village is quiet, but within the church there is an incessant plying of fans and rustling of dresses. The Belgraves are landed at the porch, and Spec and Shat whirl the family carriage into the grave-yard. The Mewkers enter with due decorum. Adolphus drops his hymn-book into the pew in front, as he always does. The little flatulent organ works through the voluntary. The sleek head of the Rev. Mr. Spat in projected toward the audience out of the folds of his cambric handkerchief; and after doing as much damage to the simple and beautiful service as he can by reading it, flourishes through the regular old Spatsonian sermon; its tiresome repetitions and plagiarisms, with the same old rising and falling inflections, the same old tremulous tone toward the end, as if he were crying; the same old recuperative method by which he recovers his lost voice in the last sentence, when it was all but gone; and the same old gesture by which the audience understand that his labors (and theirs) are over for the morning. Then the congregation departs with the usual accompaniments of dresses rustling, and pew-doors slamming; and Mr. Meeker descends from the choir and sidles up the aisle, nursing
