she had a place in these parts."

"She owns most of this parish and has done so much for us that we can
very well look leniently on a little weakness--her wish that the future
inhabitants of the place shall not remember her as a middle-aged woman
not remarkable for good looks--'funny,' as you just now said."

He was wonderfully candid, I thought. But what extraordinary benefits
had she bestowed on them, I asked, to enable them to regard, or to say,
that this picture of a very beautiful young female was her likeness!

"Why," he said, "the church would not have been built but for her. We
were astonished at the sum she offered to contribute towards the work,
and at once set about pulling the small old church down so as to rebuild
on the exact site."

"Do you know," I returned, "I can't help saying something you will not
like to hear. It is a very fine church, no doubt, but it always angers
me to hear of a case like this where some ancient church is pulled down
and a grand new one raised in its place to the honour and glory of some
rich parvenu with or without a brand new title."

"You are not hurting me in the least," he replied, with that change
which came from time to time in his eyes as if the flame behind the
screen had suddenly grown brighter. "I agree with every word you say;
the meanest church in the land should be cherished as long as it will
hold together. But unfortunately ours had to come down. It was very old
and decayed past mending. The floor was six feet below the level of the
surrounding ground and frightfully damp. It had been examined over and
over again by experts during the past forty or fifty years, and from the
first they pronounced it a hopeless case, so that it was never restored.
The interior, right down to the time of demolition, was like that of
most country churches of a century ago, with the old black worm-eaten
pews, in which the worshippers shut themselves up as if in their own
houses or castles. On account of the damp we were haunted by toads. You
smile, sir, but it was no smiling matter for me during my first year as
vicar, when I discovered that it was the custom here to keep pet toads
in the church. It sounds strange and funny, no doubt, but it is a fact
that all the best people in the parish had one of these creatures,
and it was customary for the ladies to bring it a weekly supply of
provisions--bits of meat, hard-boiled eggs chopped up, and earth-worms,
and whatever else they fanci