another invitation just yet, at all events."

"Yes," proceeded the fair, but stanch nonconformist; "what does the
Bible say, indeed! 'Take no thought of what you should say.' Why, in the
church, I am told they are doing nothing else from Monday morning to
Saturday night but writing the sermon they are going to read on the
Sabbath. To _read_ a sermon! What would the apostles say to that?"

"Why, didn't you tell me, my dear, that the gentleman as set for that
pictur got all his sermons by heart before he preached 'em?"

"Of course I did--but that's a very different thing. Doesn't it all pour
from him as natural as if it had come to him that minute? He doesn't
fumble over a book like a schoolboy. His beautiful eyes, I warrant you,
ain't looking down all the time, as if he was ashamed to hold 'em up.
Isn't it a privilege to see his blessed eyes rolling all sorts of ways;
and don't they speak wolumes to the poor benighted sinner? Besides,
don't tell me, Thompson; we had better turn Catholics at once, if we are
to have the minister dressing up like the Pope of Rome, and all the rest
of it."

"You are the gal of my heart," exclaimed the uxorious Thompson; "but I
must say you have got some of the disgracefulest notions out of that ere
chapel as ever I heard on. Why, it's only common decency to wear a dress
in the pulpit; and I believe in my mind, that that's come down to us
from time immemorable, like every thing else in human natur. What's your
opinion, Stukely?"

"Yes; and what's your opinion, Mr Stukely," added the lady immediately,
"about calling a minister of the gospel--a _priest_? Is that
Paperistical or not?"

"That isn't the pint, Polly," proceeded John. "We are talking about the
silk dress now. Let's have that out first."

"And then the absolution"----

"No, Poll. Stick to the silk dress."

"Ah, Thompson, it's always the way!" continued the mistress of the
house, growing red and wroth, and heedless of the presence of the
eager-listening children; "it's always the way. Satan is ruining of you.
You'll laugh at the elect, and you'll not find your mistake out till
it's too late to alter. Mr Clayton says, that the Establishment is the
hothouse of devils; and the more I see of its ways, the more I feel he
is right. Thompson, you are in the sink of iniquity."

"Come, I can't stand no more of this!" exclaimed Thompson, growing
uneasy in his chair, but without a spark of ill-humour. "Let's change
the topic, old 'oo