st year as a priest.

"I've been brought up in the vanguard of the Movement," he admitted.
"But you can rely on me, sir, to be loyal to your point of view, even if
I disagreed with it. I can't pretend to believe much in moderation; but
I should always be your curate before anything else, and I hope very
much indeed that you will offer me the title."

"You'll find me dull company," Mr. Shuter sighed. "My health has gone
all to pieces this last year."

"I shall have a good deal of reading to do for my priest's examination,"
Mark reminded him. "I shall try not to bother you."

The result of Mark's visit to Galton was that amongst the various
testimonials and papers he forwarded two months later to the Bishop's
Registrar was the following:

To the Right Reverend Aylmer, Lord Bishop of Silchester.

I, Arnold Shuter, Vicar of St. Luke's, Galton, in the County of
Southampton, and your Lordship's Diocese of Silchester, do hereby
nominate Mark Lidderdale, to perform the office of Assistant Curate
in my Church of St. Luke aforesaid; and do promise to allow him the
yearly stipend of L120 to be paid by equal quarterly instalments;
And I do hereby state to your Lordship that the said Mark
Lidderdale intends to reside in the said Parish in my Vicarage; and
that the said Mark Lidderdale does not intend to serve any other
Parish as Incumbent or Curate.

Witness my hand this fourteenth day of November; in the year of our
Lord, 1904.

Arnold Shuter,

St. Luke's Vicarage,

Galton,

Hants.

I, Arnold Shuter, Incumbent of St. Luke's, Galton, in the County of
Southampton, bona fide undertake to pay Mark Lidderdale, of the
Rectory, Wych-on-the-Wold, in the County of Oxford, the annual sum
of one hundred and twenty pounds as a stipend for his services as
Curate, and I, Mark Lidderdale, bona fide intend to receive the
whole of the said stipend. And each of us, Arnold Shuter and Mark
Lidderdale, declare that no abatement is to be made out of the said
stipend in respect of rent or consideration for the use of the
Glebe House; and that I, Arnold Shuter, undertake to pay the same,
and I, Mark Lidderdale, intend to receive the same, without any
deduction or abatement whatsoever.

Arnold Shuter,

Mark Lidderdale.

CHAPTER XXXII

EMBER DAYS

Mark, having been notified that he