he _most joyful holiday_
of my year, from my first entrance into that pleasant home until you
chaperon me to the Omnibus at the gate of the Show-ground, I need not
enlarge on my disappointment. The less said the better.

When Dido found AEneas did not come,
She mourned in silence, and was Di do dum.

Roses are improving here, but they will be very late. May you add to the
victories which your zeal and care have so well deserved. Shall you be
at Sheffield? If so, you might return with me and have a quiet day's
talk and ramble. With kindest regards and most obnoxious regrets, I
remain yours most sincerely,

* * * * *

When the Church Conference was held at Newcastle, Hole told a story of a
young curate who was preaching in a strange church from which the rector
was away. He preached a very short sermon, and in the vestry afterwards
the churchwarden remarked upon its shortness, and the curate told him
that a pup at his lodgings got into his room and ate half his sermon,
whereupon the churchwarden said: "I should be much obliged if you could
get our rector one of the breed." Reading this story, Mr. Boultbee wrote
to ask Hole if he could say what happened to the dog after eating the
sermon, and the reply was:

Dear Sir,--You will be pleased to hear that when the dog had inwardly
digested the sermon which he had torn, he turned over a new leaf. He had
been sullen and morose; he became "a very jolly dog." He had been
selfish and exclusive in his manger; he generously gave it up to an aged
poodle. He had been noisy and vulgar; he became a quiet, gentlemanly
dog; he never growled again; and when he was bitten he always requested
the cur who had torn his flesh to be so good, as a particular favour, to
bite him again. He has established a Reformatory in the Isle of Dogs for
perverse puppies, and an Infirmary for Mangy Mastiffs in Houndsditch.
He has won twenty-six medals from the Humane Society for rescuing
children who have fallen into the canal. He spends six days of the week
in conducting his brothers and sisters, who have lost their ways, to the
Dog's Home, and it is a most touching sight to see him leading the blind
to church from morning to night on Sundays.

[Sidenote: _Dean Hole_]

My dear Lord Bishop,--I have a strong suspicion that the inundation of
the Nave at Rochester was a knavish conspiracy of the Tee-totallers to
submerge the Cathedral during the absence of the Dean. The