aker preacher, there still
remained a few traces of the fastidious French noble, Etienne de
Grellet. The traces had been buried deep down by this time, but there
they still were. They leapt suddenly to light, that busy afternoon on
London Bridge. Neither French nobleman nor Quaker preacher liked to be
seized in such unceremonious fashion. 'Friend,' he remonstrated,
drawing himself gently away, 'I think that thou art mistaken.'

'No, I am not,' rejoined the other, his grip tighter than ever. 'When
you have sought a man over the face of the globe year after year, you
don't make a mistake when you find him at last. Not you! Not me
either! I'm not mistaken, and I don't let you go now I've found you
after all these years, with your same little dapper, black, cut-away
coat, that I thought so queer; and your broad-brimmed hat that I well
remember. Never heard a man preach with his hat on before!'

'Hast thou heard me preach, Friend? Why then didst thou not speak to
me afterwards if thou wished?'

'But I didn't wish!' answered the stranger, 'nothing I wished for
less!'

'Where was it?' enquired Stephen.

'Why, I heard you preaching to nobody, years and years ago,' the man
returned. 'At least you supposed you were preaching to nobody. Really,
you were preaching to me. Cut me to the heart you did too, I can tell
you.'

A dawning light of comprehension came into Stephen's face as the other
went on: 'Didn't you preach in a deserted dining-shanty in the
backwoods of America near----' (and he named the place), 'on such a
day and in such a year?'

He asked these questions in a loud voice, regardless of the astonished
looks of the passers-by, still holding tight to the edge of Stephen's
coat with one hand, and shaking the forefinger of the other in
Stephen's face as he spoke, to emphasize each word.

By this time all traces of Etienne, the fastidious French nobleman,
had utterly disappeared. Stephen Grellet, the minister of Christ, was
alive now to the tips of his fingers. His whole soul was in his eyes
as he gazed at his questioner. Was that old, old riddle going to find
its answer at last?

'Wast thou there?' he enquired breathlessly. 'Impossible! I must have
seen thee!'

'I was there, right enough,' answered the man. 'But you did not see
me, because I took very good care that you should not. At first I
thought you were a lunatic, preaching to a lot of forms and tables
like that, and better left alone. Then, afterwards,