or clergyman's wife, you
will give her husband a living;' and you answered, 'Mr. Bridge, my
promise is not worth half-a-crown, but I give it to you, wishing it were
worth more.'" Enthusiastically the Chancellor exclaimed, "You are quite
right. I admit the obligation. I remember all about it;" and, then,
after a pause, archly surveying the damsel, whose graces were the
reverse of matronly, he added, "But surely the time for keeping my
promise has not yet arrived? You cannot be any one's wife at present?"
For a few seconds Bessie hesitated for an answer, and then, with a blush
and a ripple of silver laughter she replied, "No, but I do so wish to be
_somebody's_ wife. I am engaged to a young clergyman; and there's a
living in Herefordshire near my old home that has recently fallen
vacant, and if you'll give it to Alfred, why then, Lord Eldon, we shall
marry before the end of the year." Is there need to say that the
Chancellor forthwith summoned his Secretary, that the secretary
forthwith made out the presentation to Bessie's lover, and that having
given the Chancellor a kiss of gratitude, Bessie made good speed back to
Herefordshire, hugging the precious document the whole way home?

A bad but eager sportsman, Lord Eldon used to blaze away at his
partridges and pheasants with such uniform want of success that Lord
Stowell had truth as well as humor on his side when he observed, "My
brother has done much execution this shooting season; with his gun he
has _killed a great deal of time_." Having ineffectually discharged two
barrels at a covey of partridges, the Chancellor was slowly walking to
the gate of one of his Encome turnip-fields when a stranger of clerical
garb and aspect hailed him from a distance, asking, "Where is Lord
Eldon?" Not anxious to declare himself to the witness of his ludicrously
bad shot, the Chancellor answered evasively, and with scant courtesy,
"Not far off." Displeased with the tone of this curt reply, the
clergyman rejoined, "I wish you'd use your tongue to better purpose than
you do your gun, and tell me civily where I can find the Chancellor."
"Well," responded the sportsman, when he had slowly approached his
questioner, "here you see the Chancellor--I am Lord Eldon." It was an
untoward introduction to the Chancellor for the strange clergyman who
had traveled from the North of Lancashire to ask for the presentation to
a vacant living. Partly out of humorous compassion for the applicant who
had of