, of a Sunda', but who
does hisn of a Monda, think ye?" was old Will's response.

The footsteps passed on, and I was just going to relieve my feelings by
a good laugh, when I was stopped and astonished by Flora's voice.

"O Cary, how dreadful!"

"Dreadful!" said I, "what is dreadful?"

"That wretched man!" she said in a tone which matched her words.

"He does not think himself a wretched man, by any means," I said. "His
living is worth quite two hundred a year, and he has a little private
property beside. They say he does not stand at all a bad chance for a
deanery. His wife is not a pleasant woman, I believe; she has a temper:
but his son is carrying all before him at college, and his daughters are
thought to be among the prettiest girls in the county."

"Has he children? Poor things!" sighed Flora.

"Why, Flora, I cannot make you out," said I. "I could understand your
being uncomfortable about Angus; but what is Mr Bagnall to you?"

"Cary!" I cannot describe the tone.

"Well?" said I.

"Is the Lord nothing to me?" she said, almost passionately; "nor the
poor misguided souls committed to that man's charge, for which he will
have to give account at the last day?"

"My dear Flora, you do take things so seriously!" I said, trying to
laugh; but her tone and words had startled me, for all that.

"It is well to take sin seriously," said she. "Men are serious enough
in Hell; and sin is its antechamber."

"You don't suppose poor Mr Bagnall will be sent there, for a little too
much champagne at a hunt-supper?" said I. I did not like it, for I
thought of Father. I have heard him singing "Old King Cole" and half a
dozen more songs, all mixed up in a heap, after a hunt-supper. "Men
always do it there. And I can assure you Mr Bagnall is thought a
first-class preacher. People go to hear him even from Cockermouth."

"That is worse than ever," said Flora, "A man who preaches the truth and
serves the Devil--that must be awful!"

"Flora, you do say the queerest things!" said I. "Does your father
never do so?"

"My father?" she answered in an astonished, indignant voice. "_My
father_! Cary! but,"--with a change in the tone--"you do not know him,
of course. Why, Cary, if he knew that Angus had been for once in the
midst of such a scene as that, I think it would break my father's
heart."

I wondered how Angus had fared, and if he were singing snatches of
Scotch songs in some bed-chamber at the other en