ghter's greatest troubles.

The little choir of children sang admirably, led by the
schoolmistress, and Miss Winter and the curate exchanged
approving glances. They performed the liveliest chant in their
collection, that the opposition might have no cause to complain
of their want of joyfulness. And in turn Miss Winter was in hopes
that, out of deference to her, the usual rule of selection in the
gallery might have been modified. It was with no small annoyance,
therefore, that, after the Litany was over, and the tuning
finished, she heard the clerk give out that they would praise God
by singing part of the ninety-first Psalm. Mary, who was on the
tiptoe of expectation as to what was coming, saw the curate give
a slight shrug with his shoulders and lift of his eyebrows as he
left the reading-desk, and in another minute it became a painful
effort for her to keep from laughing as she slyly watched her
cousin's face; while the gallery sang with vigour worthy of any
cause or occasion--

"On the old lion He shall go,
The adder fell and long;
On the young lion tread also,
With dragons stout and strong."

The trebles took up the last line, and repeated--

"With dragons stout and strong;"

and then the whole strength of the gallery chorused again--

"With _dra-gons_ stout and strong;"

and the bass-viol seemed to her to prolong the notes and to gloat
over them as he droned them out, looking triumphantly at the
distant curate. Mary was thankful to kneel down to compose her
face. The first trial was the severe one, and she got through the
second psalm much better; and by the time Mr. Walker had plunged
fairly into his sermon she was a model of propriety and
sedateness again. But it was to be a Sunday of adventures. The
sermon had scarcely begun when there was a stir down by the door
at the west end, and people began to look round and whisper.
Presently a man came softly up and said something to the clerk;
the clerk jumped up and whispered to the curate, who paused for a
moment with a puzzled look, and, instead of finishing his
sentence, said in a loud voice, "Farmer Groves' house is on
fire!"

The curate probably anticipated the effect of his words; in a
minute he was the only person left in the church except the clerk
and one or two very infirm old folk. He shut up and pocketed his
sermon, and followed his flock.

It proved luckily to be only Farmer Groves' chimney and not his
house which was on