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of the same village. At five minutes to the hour there approach Mr, Profitt, the school-masier, in a soft felt hat, and Christopher Twink, the master-thatcher ; and as the hour strikes there rapidly drop in the parish-clerk and his wife, the seedeman and his aged father, the registrar; also Mr. Day, the world-ignored local landscape-painter, an elderly man who resides in bis native place, and has never sold a picture outside it, thongh hia pretensions to art have been nobly supported by hie fellow-villagers, whose confidence in his genius has been as remarkable as the outer neglect of it, leading them to buy his paintings so extensively (at the price of a few shillings each, it ia true) that every dwelling in the parish exhibits three or four of these admired productions on its walls.

Burthen, the carrier, is by this time seen bustling round the vehicle ; the horses are put in, the proprietor arranges the reins and springs up into his seat as if he were used to it—which he is,

“Is everybody here?” he aske, preparatorily, over his shoulder to the passengers within.

As those who were oot there did not reply in the negative the muster was assumed to be complete, and after a few hitches and hinderances the van with its homan freight was got under way. It jogged on at an easy pace till it reached the bridge which formed the last outpost of the town. The carrier pulled up suddenly

"Bless my sonl !” he said, “I’ve forgot the curate !”

All who could do so gazed from the little back win- dow of the van, but the curate was not in sight.

“Now I wonder where that there man is?” continued the carrier.

“Poor man, he ought to have a living at hia time of life.”