l
duties, owing to a malady in the throat, which made it painful for him
to take his place in the reading-desk or the pulpit. His last curacy
attached him to a church at the West-end of London; and here, one Sunday
evening, after he had preached the sermon, a lady in trouble came to him
in the vestry for spiritual advice and consolation. She was a regular
attendant at the church, and something which he had said in that
evening's sermon had deeply affected her. Mr. Hethcote spoke with her
afterwards on many occasions at home. He felt a sincere interest in her,
but he disliked her husband; and, when he gave up his curacy, he ceased
to pay visits to the house. As to what Mrs. Farnaby's troubles were, I
can tell you nothing. Mr. Hethcote spoke very gravely and sadly when he
told me that the subject of his conversations with her must be kept a
secret. "I doubt whether you and Mr. Farnaby will get on well together,"
he said to me; "but I shall be astonished if you are not favourably
impressed by his wife and her niece."

This was all I knew when I presented my letter of introduction to Mr.
Farnaby at his place of business.

It was a grand stone building, with great plate-glass windows--all
renewed and improved, they told me, since old Mr. Ronald's time. My
letter and my card went into an office at the back, and I followed them
after a while. A lean, hard, middle-aged man, buttoned up tight in a
black frock-coat, received me, holding my written introduction open in
his hand. He had a ruddy complexion not commonly seen in Londoners, so
far as my experience goes. His iron-gray hair and whiskers (especially
the whiskers) were in wonderfully fine order--as carefully oiled and
combed as if he had just come out of a barber's shop. I had been in the
morning to the Zoological Gardens; his eyes, when he lifted them from
the letter to me, reminded me of the eyes of the eagles--glassy and
cruel. I have a fault that I can't cure myself of. I like people, or
dislike them, at first sight, without knowing, in either case, whether
they deserve it or not. In the one moment when our eyes met, I felt the
devil in me. In plain English, I hated Mr. Farnaby!

"Good morning, sir," he began, in a loud, harsh, rasping voice. "The
letter you bring me takes me by surprise."

"I thought the writer was an old friend of yours," I said.

"An old friend of mine," Mr. Farnaby answered, "whose errors I deplore.
When he joined your Community, I looked upon