y."

Meanwhile Mrs. Wynne had knocked at the door and had been confronted by
Essec Powell himself, who presented such an extraordinary appearance
that she had some difficulty in composing her face to a proper degree
of gravity. His trousers of brown cloth, burnt at the knees into a
green hue, were turned up above each ankle, exhibiting his blue woollen
stockings and a tattered pair of black cloth shoes, his coat was of
black cloth, very much frayed at the collar and cuffs, his white hair
flew about in all directions, as the draught from the back door swirled
in when the front door was opened. He had his finger in the leaves of
an old book, and with a far-away look in his blue eyes, all he could
say was a bewildered, "Eh!"

"The Vicar is coming to see you, Mr. Powell--"

"What Vicar? What, the 'Vicare du'?" and at this moment the Vicar
appeared, and held out his hand.

Essec Powell stared in astonishment, and carefully exchanging his book
from his right to his left hand, and glancing to see that his finger
was on the right passage, he rather ungraciously shook hands with his
visitor.

"Well," he said, "there's a thing I never thought I would do in this
world."

"Oh, well, come," said Lewis Wynne's jovial voice. "You meant to do it
in the next world evidently, so we may as well begin here."

"Will you come in?" and the old man awkwardly ushered them into the
little back parlour, which Valmai's busy fingers had transformed from
its original bareness into a cosy home-room.

"Oh, what a dear little room," said Mrs. Wynne as she entered.

The table was littered with books and papers, a gleam of sunlight
shining through the crimson curtains giving a warm glow to the whole
room.

"Yes," said Essec Powell, looking round with the air of a stranger, "it
has nice bookshelves, and a nice light for reading; but I miss that
girl shocking, shocking," he repeated; "got to look out for every
passage now, and I was used to her somehow, you see; and I haven't got
anybody else, and I wish in my heart she would come back again."

"That, I am afraid," said the Vicar, "can never be; perhaps both you
and I, Mr. Powell, have forgotten too much that, while we are going
down the stream of life, the young people are going up, and are
building their own hopes and interests; and I called to-day to see
whether we could not agree--you and I--to think more of the young
people's happiness for the future, and less of our own ease or our