nicative, and told Mr. Gilmore a good deal about Loring. Our
friend was afraid to ask any leading questions as to the persons in
the place who interested himself, feeling conscious that his own
subject was one which would not bear touch from a rough hand. He did
at last venture to make inquiry about the clergyman of the parish.
Mr. Cockey, with some merriment at his own wit, declared that the
church was a house of business at which he did not often call for
orders. Though he had been coming to Loring now for four years, he
had never heard anything of the clergyman; but the waiter no doubt
would tell them. Gilmore rather hesitated, and protested that he
cared little for the matter; but the waiter was called in and
questioned, and was soon full of stories about old Mr. Marrable. He
was a good sort of man in his way, the waiter thought, but not much
of a preacher. The people liked him because he never interfered with
them. "He don't go poking his nose into people's 'ouses like some
of 'em," said the waiter, who then began to tell of the pertinacity
in that respect of a younger clergyman at Uphill. Yes; Parson
Marrable had a relation living at Uphill; an old lady. "No; not
his grandmother." This was in answer to a joke on the part of Mr.
Cockey. Nor yet a daughter. The waiter thought she was some kind of
a cousin, though he did not know what kind. A very grand lady was
Miss Marrable, according to his showing, and much thought of by the
quality. There was a young lady living with her, though the waiter
did not know the young lady's name.

"Does the Rev. Mr. Marrable live alone?" asked Gilmore. "Well, yes;
for the most part quite alone. But just at present he had a visitor."
Then the waiter told all that he knew about the Captain. The most
material part of this was that the Captain had returned from London
that very evening;--had come in by the Express while the two "gents"
were at dinner, and had been taken to the Lowtown parsonage by the
Bull 'bus. "Quite the gentleman," was the Captain, according to the
waiter, and one of the "handsomest gents as ever he'd set his eyes
upon." "D---- him," said poor Harry Gilmore to himself. Then he
ventured upon another question. Did the waiter know anything of
Captain Marrable's father? The waiter only knew that the Captain's
father was "a military gent, and was high up in the army." From all
which the only information which Gilmore received was the fact that
the match between Marrable a