ere was not a line of
white visible above his black collar; but a square of white in front,
where the edges parted. A heavy chain hung from his vest; and his boots
glistened and winked in the lamplight.

"You'll take something?" I said. "You have had a long drive."

"If not too much trouble," he said, "I'll have a cup of tea."

I rang the bell.

"Get a cup of tea, Hannah," I said.

"A cup of wha--at?" queried Hannah. She had the usual feminine contempt
for men that drink tea.

"A cup of tea," I said decisively, "and don't be long."

"Oyeh!" said Hannah. But she brought in a few minutes later the tea and
hot cakes that would make an alderman hungry, and two poached eggs on
toast. I was awfully proud of my domestic arrangements. But I was
puzzled. Hannah was not always so courteous. She explained next day.

"I didn't like him at all, at all," she said, "but whin I came out and
saw his portmanty all brass knobs, and took up his rug, whew! it was
that soft and fine it would do to wrap up the Queen, I said to myself,
'this is a gintleman, Hannah; who knows but he's the Bishop on his
tower.'"

"I hope you like your tea?" I said.

"It's simply delicious," he answered.

He ate heartily. Poor fellow, he was hungry after a long drive; but he
chewed every morsel as a cow would chew the cud on a lazy summer
afternoon, without noise or haste, and he lifted my poor old china cup
as daintily as if it were Sevres. Then we fell to talking.

"I am afraid," I said tentatively, "that you'll find this place dull
after your last mission. But have you been on the mission before?"

"Oh yes, Father," he said, "I thought the Bishop might have written to
you."

"Well," I said, "I had reason to know you were coming; but the Bishop is
rather laconic in his epistles. He prides himself on his virtue of
reticence."

I said this, because it would never do to let him suppose that the
Bishop would send me a curate without letting me know of it. And I
thought I was using select language, an opinion which, after the nine
years and more of Horace, I have no reason to alter.

[Illustration: "You will take something?" I said. "You have had a long
drive."]

"My only mission hitherto," he said, "has been in Manchester, at St.
Chad's. It was a populous mission, and quite full of those daily trials
and contingencies that make life wearisome to a priest. I confess I was
not sorry to have been called home."

"But you had society," I interjec