tor was so moved that it was only by assuming an expression
of portentous severity and by bellowing and stamping about that he was
able to keep himself in decent control.

"And you really thought we had forgotten you because we were insane
enough to stop writing at that villain's request?" he said, patting
Kate's pale cheeks tenderly and kissing her.

"I was very foolish," she said, blushing prettily and rearranging her
hair, which had been somewhat tumbled by her numerous caresses.

"Oh, that scoundrel--that pair of scoundrels!" roared the doctor,
shaking his fist and dancing about on the hearth-rug. "Pray God they
may catch 'em before the trial comes off!"

The good physician's prayer was not answered in this case, for Burt was
the only criminal who appeared in the dock. Our friends all went down
to the Winchester Assizes to give evidence, and the navvy was duly
convicted of the death of Rebecca Taylforth and condemned to death.
He was executed some three weeks afterwards, dying as he had lived,
stolid and unrepenting.

There is a little unpretending church not far from Phillimore Gardens,
in which a little unpretending clergyman preaches every Sunday out of a
very shabby pulpit. It lies in Castle Lane, which is a narrow by-way,
and the great crowd of church-goers ebbs and flows within a hundred
yards of it, but none know of its existence, for it has never risen to
the dignity of a spire, and the bell is so very diminutive that the
average muffin man produces quite as much noise. Hence, with the
exception of some few families who have chanced to find their way there,
and have been so pleased with their spiritual welcome that they have
returned, there is a poor and fluctuating congregation. So scanty is it
that the struggling incumbent could very well weep when he has spent the
week in polishing and strengthening his sermon, and then finds upon the
Sunday how very scanty is the audience to whom it is to be addressed.

Imagine, then, this good man's surprise when asked to publish the banns
of marriage of two couples simultaneously, each of whom he knew to be in
the upper circles of life, and when informed at the same time that the
said marriages were actually to be celebrated under his own auspices and
in his own church. In the fullness of his heart he at once bought a
most unwearable black bonnet with lilac flowers and red berries, which
he brought in triumph to his wife, who, good woman, affected extreme
d