will work. I am pretty
hopeful myself. How are affairs getting on at your chapel? I am told
that the sermons of your _locum tenens_ send the congregation asleep."

"He is not at his best in the pulpit. A good fellow! a most loving man
but not able to grapple with a large congregation. After all, I am
obliged to confess that very few of our cloth are. The power of
preaching is quite an exceptional one; and it is a gift as well as a
trust. I humbly believe that the power of the tongue comes of a higher
ordination than the bishop's."

Nothing further was said about Marian. The clergyman's object in
visiting Conolly was, it presently appeared, to borrow a portmanteau.
When he was gone, Conolly returned to the laboratory, and wrote the
following letter:

"My dear Marian

"I have just had two unexpected visits, one from Mrs. Fairfax, and
one from George. Mrs. L.F. said you asked her to call and give me
the news. When I told her, without blushing, that you had written
to prepare me for her visit, she was rather put out, justly
thinking me to mean that I did not believe her. As this is fully
the thirty-sixth falsehood in which you have detected good Mrs. F.,
I fear you will be compelled, in spite of your principle of
believing the best of everybody, to regard her in future as a not
invariably accurate woman. She came with the object of making me go
down to Sark. You were so young and so much admired: Mr. Douglas
was so attentive: you should not be left entirely alone, and so
forth. You will be angry with her; but she thinks Douglas so
irresistible that she is genuinely anxious about you: I believe she
really meant well this time. As to our reverend brother, his
portmanteau burst in the train coming from Edinburgh; so he came to
borrow mine, having apparently resolved to wear out those of all
his friends before buying a new one. Unfortunately, he met Mrs. F.
down the road; and she urged him to go down to Sark just as she had
urged me. Now as George is incapable of holding his tongue when he
ought, I feel sure that unless I tell you what Mrs. F. said, he
will anticipate me. Otherwise I should not have mentioned it until
your return, for fear of annoying you and spoiling your visit. So
if his reverence hints or lectures, you will know what he means and
not heed him. Mrs. F's confidences have probably not been confined
to me; but were I in your place, I should not make the sl