illing."

Mr. Puddleham had now joined them. "I am ready and willing," said he,
"to do my duty in that sphere of life to which it has pleased God to
call me." And it was evident that he thought that the sphere to which
he had been called was that special chapel opposite to the vicarage
entrance.

"As I was saying," continued the Vicar, "I have neither the wish nor
the power to control my neighbour; but, as far as I am concerned, no
step need be taken to displace him. I did not like this site for the
chapel at first; but I have got quit of all that feeling, and Mr.
Puddleham may preach to his heart's content,--as he will, no doubt,
to his hearers' welfare, and will not annoy me in the least." On
hearing this, Mr. Puddleham pushed his hat off his forehead and
looked up and frowned, as though the levity of expression in which
his rival indulged, was altogether unbecoming the solemnity of the
occasion.

"Mr. Fenwick," said the lord, "we have taken advice, and we find the
thing ought to be done,--and to be done instantly. The leading men of
the congregation are quite of that view."

"They are of course unwilling to oppose your noble father, my lord,"
said the minister.

"And to tell you the truth, Mr. Fenwick," continued Lord St. George,
"you might be put, most unjustly, into a peck of troubles if we did
not do this. You have no right to let the glebe on a building lease,
even if you were willing, and high ecclesiastical authority would
call upon you at once to have the nuisance removed."

"Nuisance, my lord!" said Mr. Puddleham, who had seen with half an
eye that the son was by no means worthy of the father.

"Well, yes,--placed in the middle of the Vicar's ground! What would
you say if Mr. Fenwick demanded leave to use your parlour for his
vestry room, and to lock up his surplice in your cupboard?"

"I'm sure he'd try it on before he'd had it a day," said the Vicar,
"and very well he'd look in it," whereupon the minister again raised
his hat, and again frowned.

"The long and the short of it is," continued the lord, "that we've,
among us, made a most absurd mistake, and the sooner we put it right
the better. My father, feeling that our mistake has led to all the
others, and that we have caused all this confusion, thinks it to be
his duty to pull the chapel down and build it up on the site before
proposed near the cross roads. We'll begin at once, and hope to get
it done by Christmas. In the mean time, Mr. Puddl