bearing a foreign postmark and stamp (which became at once the
objects of an eager competition among the youthful Gregorys), and
addressed in an uneducated, but plainly an English hand.

When the Rector opened it, and turned to the signature, he realized that
it came from the confidential valet of his friend and squire, Mr.
Somerton. Thus it ran:

Honoured Sir,

Has I am in a great anxiety about Master I write at is Wish to beg
you Sir if you could be so good as Step over. Master Has add a Nastey
Shock and keeps His Bedd. I never Have known Him like this but No
wonder and Nothing will serve but you Sir. Master says would I
mintion the Short Way Here is Drive to Cobblince and take a Trap.
Hopeing I Have maid all Plain, but am much Confused in Myself what
with Anxiatey and Weakfulness at Night. If I might be so Bold Sir it
will be a Pleasure to see a Honnest Brish Face among all These Forig
ones.

I am Sir

Your obed't Serv't

William Brown.

P.S.--The Village for Town I will not Turm It is name Steenfeld.

The reader must be left to picture to himself in detail the surprise,
confusion, and hurry of preparation into which the receipt of such a
letter would be likely to plunge a quiet Berkshire parsonage in the year
of grace 1859. It is enough for me to say that a train to town was caught
in the course of the day, and that Mr Gregory was able to secure a cabin
in the Antwerp boat and a place in the Coblenz train. Nor was it
difficult to manage the transit from that centre to Steinfeld.

I labour under a grave disadvantage as narrator of this story in that I
have never visited Steinfeld myself, and that neither of the principal
actors in the episode (from whom I derive my information) was able to
give me anything but a vague and rather dismal idea of its appearance. I
gather that it is a small place, with a large church despoiled of its
ancient fittings; a number of rather ruinous great buildings, mostly of
the seventeenth century, surround this church; for the abbey, in common
with most of those on the Continent, was rebuilt in a luxurious fashion
by its inhabitants at that period. It has not seemed to me worth while to
lavish money on a visit to the place, for though it is probably far more
attractive than either Mr Somerton or Mr Gregory thought it, there is
evidently little, if anything, of first-rate interest to be seen--except,
perhaps, one thing, wh