is own resources,
and he wanted it clearly understood that, short, of course, of the broad
general principles of Christian teaching, no restrictions were to be
placed either by him or anyone else on the young man's expression of the
faith that was in him. "All we want you to do," he said in conclusion,
"is to make the place go, give it new blood, new fire; as to how you do
it, that is your own business--and I shall no more interfere with you in
that than I should expect you to instruct me on the subject of York
hams. We must all be specialists nowadays,--specialists," repeated Mr.
Moggridge, with a feeling that he too had discovered planets.

So it came to pass that "The Rev. Theophilus Londonderry, Pastor,"
presently lit up with a sudden vehemence of new gold-leaf the faded
dusty name board of the chapel, and that, his own home being at too
great a distance for his ministrations, he came to lodge with some nice
old-fashioned people called Talbot at No. 3, Zion Lane.

I want you to like funny old Mrs. Talbot, and I want you to love her
little daughter Jenny; so, to make it the easier, I shall not describe
them at too great a length. Old Mr. and Mrs. Talbot were the sole
survivors of the less active founders of New Zion, meekly not militantly
pious, stubborn as sheep in a dumb obstinacy of ancient faith, but in no
sense dialectical, and in every sense harmless.

Mr. Talbot was a working stone-mason, and on rare occasions when front
parlour people caught glimpses of him, he was observed to be sitting in
the kitchen in some uncomfortable attitude of unoccupation, "like
white-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone." It is not recorded that he ever
thought on any subject, and it is certain that he seldom spoke. He would
flee from a stranger as from a lion, and, when confronted by such from
the wilds of the front parlour, he would bob his old head pathetically,
and make no attempt at speech beyond a muffled good-evening. It
disconcerted him to be expected to speak, and his tongue slumbered in
his mouth,--for he was an old weary man, and perhaps very wise.

Old Mrs. Talbot, whose wifehood had long since been submerged in an
immeasurable motherhood and the best of cooks, would do the little
thinking the house required, take charge of the old man's earnings, pay
the rent and the burial club, and scheme little savings against Jenny's
marriage--which she kept, not in an old stocking, but in a precious
teapot of some old-fashioned ware