nt could not forego the solemn
luxury, and those who denied themselves all of scandal's toothsome
tidbits could not renounce this great repast.

I entertained no actual misgivings as to St. Cuthbert's permanent
loyalty to me; but our self-consciousness had become raw and sore, our
manse had turned suddenly to a house of glass, and the whole situation
was so fraught with embarrassment that no mere man since the fall could
have been free from an instinctive longing to escape.

St. Andrew's, Charleston, an ancient church of that ancient city, had
offered me its pulpit. The Southerners have a taste for British blood,
and they stand alone as connoisseurs of that commodity. Wherefore, the
St. Andrew's folk had cast about for a British minister, preferring the
second growth, hopeful that its advantage of American shade might have
made its excellence complete.

Their committee ranged all Canada, finally dismounting beneath the
stately steeple of St. Cuthbert's, their lasso loosed for action. Or, to
change the metaphor, they informed their church at home that their eyes
were fastened on their game at last; for the duty of such a committee is
to tree their bird, then hold him transfixed by various well-known
sounds till the congregation shall bring him down by well directed aim,
bag him, and bear him off.

The Charleston Committee was composed of four, who attended St.
Cuthbert's both morning and evening, when they came one Sabbath day to
spy out the land.

The proprietor of the Imperial Hotel, himself an extinct Presbyterian,
told me afterwards that they arrived late at night, begged to be excused
from registering and went immediately to their rooms. But he knew in the
morning that they were not to the manner born--for they asked for
"oatmeal" for breakfast, which is called porridge by all who boast even
a tincture of that blood it hath so long enriched.

Then they ate it with outward signs of enjoyment, which also flies in
the face of all Scottish principle. Besides all this, they gave the maid
a quarter, which was the most conclusive evidence of all.

They walked to St. Cuthbert's in four different detachments and sat in
separate sections of the church. But they were not unnoticed; every
Scotch section marked its man, for in New Jedboro strangers were events.
I myself remarked three of them; devout they seemed and yet vigilant--as
was natural, for they had come to both watch and pray.

The psalms were too much for the