is reverence deep in the composition of a
sermon. Harry's face was grave and melancholy; he flung down his hat,
buried himself in a great chair, and then came from his lips something
like an execration.

"The young ladies are going, and our heart is affected?" said the
chaplain, looking up from his manuscript.

"Heart!" sneered Harry.

"Which of the young ladies is the conqueror, sir? I thought the
youngest's eyes followed you about at your ball."

"Confound the little termagant!" broke out Harry. "What does she mean by
being so pert to me? She treats me as if I was a fool!"

"And no man is, sir, with a woman!" said the scribe of the sermon.

"Ain't they, Chaplain?" And Harry growled out more naughty words
expressive of inward disquiet.

"By the way, have you heard anything of your lost property?" asked the
chaplain, presently looking up from his pages.

Harry said "No!" with another word, which I would not print for the
world.

"I begin to suspect, sir, that there was more money than you like to own
in that book. I wish I could find some."

"There were notes in it," said Harry, very gloomily, "and--and papers
that I am very sorry to lose. What the deuce has come of it? I had it
when we dined together."

"I saw you put it in your pocket," cried the chaplain. "I saw you take
it out and pay at the toy-shop a bill for a gold thimble and workbox for
one of your young ladies. Of course you have asked there, sir?"

"Of course I have," says Mr. Warrington, plunged in melancholy.

"Gumbo put you to bed--at least, if I remember right. I was so cut
myself that I scarce remember anything. Can you trust those black
fellows, sir?"

"I can trust him with my head. With my head?" groaned out Mr.
Warrington, bitterly., "I can't trust myself with it."

"'Oh, that a man should put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his
brains!'"

"You may well call it an enemy, Chaplain. Hang it, I have a great mind
to make a vow never to drink another drop! A fellow says anything when
he is in drink."

The chaplain laughed. "You, sir," he said, "are close enough!" And the
truth was, that, for the last few days, no amount of wine would unseal
Mr. Warrington's lips, when the artless Sampson by chance touched on the
subject of his patron's loss.

"And so the little country nymphs are gone, or going, sir?" asked the
chaplain. "They were nice, fresh little things; but I think the mother
was the finest woman of the three. I declare,