plied an answer, and that was Mr Sharnall. A letter
had come for the organist that very day:

"The Palace,

"Carisbury.

"My dear Sharnall,

"(I had almost written `My dear Nick'; forty years have made my pen a
little stiff, but you must give me your official permission to write
`My dear Nick' the very next time.) You may have forgotten my hand,
but you will not have forgotten me. Do you know, it is I, Willis, who
am your new Bishop? It is only a fortnight since I learnt that you
were so near me--

"`Quam dulce amicitias,
Redintegrare nitidas' -

"and the very first point of it is that I am going to sponge on you,
and ask myself to lunch. I am coming to Cullerne at 12:45 to-day
fortnight for the Confirmation, and have to be at the Rectory at 2:30,
but till then an old friend, Nicholas Sharnall, will give me food and
shelter, will he not? Make no excuses, for I shall not accept them;
but send me word to say that in this you will not fail of your duty,
and believe me always to be

"Yours,

"John Carum."

There was something that moved strangely inside Mr Sharnall's battered
body as he read the letter--an upheaval of emotion; the child's heart
within the man's; his young hopeful self calling to his old hopeless
self. He sat back in his armchair, and shut his eyes, and the
organ-loft in a little college chapel came back to him, and long, long
practisings, and Willis content to stand by and listen as long as he
should play. How it pleased Willis to stand by, and pull the stops, and
fancy he knew something of music! No, Willis never knew any music, and
yet he had a good taste, and loved a fugue.

There came to him country rambles and country churches and Willis with
an "A.B.C. of Gothic Architecture," trying to tell an Early English from
a Decorated moulding. There came to him inimitably long summer
evenings, with the sky clearest yellow in the north, hours after sunset;
dusty white roads, with broad galloping-paths at the side, drenched with
heavy dew; the dark, mysterious boskage of Stow Wood; the scent of the
syringa in the lane at Beckley; the white mist sheeting the Cherwell
vale. And supper when they got home--for memory is so powerful an
alchemist as to transmute suppers as well as sunsets. What suppers!
Cider-cup with borage floating in it, cold lamb and mint sauce,
watercress, and a triangular commons of Stilton. Why, he had not tasted
Stilton for f