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home as if their brother's wedding had actually taken place, and the married couple had gone onward for their day’s pleasure jaunt to Port Bredy as intended. He, the clerk, and any casual paseer-by would act as witnesses when the pa’son came back.

“This was agreed to, and away Andrey’s relations went, nothing loath, and the clerk shut the church door and prepared to lock in the couple. The bride went up and whispered to him, with her eyes a-streaming still,

“'My dear good clerk,’ she says, ‘if we bide here in the church, folk may see us through the winders, and find ont what has happened; and ’twould cause such a talk and scandal that I never should get over it; and perhaps, too, dear Andrey might try to get out and leave me! ‘Will ye lock us up in the tower, my dear good clerk?’ she says, ‘I’'ll tole him in there if you will.’

“The clerk had no objection to do this to oblige the poor young woman, and they toled Andrey into the tower, and the clerk looked ’em both up straightway, and then went home, to return at the end of the two hours.

“Pa’son Toogood had not been long in his house after leaving the church when he saw a gentleman in pink and top-boots ride past his windows, and with a sudden flash of heat he called to mind that the hounds met that day just on the edge of his parish, The pa’son was one who dearly loved sport, and much he longed to be there.

“In short, except o? Sundays and at tide-times in the week, Pa’son Billy was the life o’ the hunt. ‘Tis true that he was poor, and that be rode all of a heap, and that his black mare was rat-tailed and old, and his tops older, and all over of one color, whity-brown, and full o’ cracks. But he'd been in at the death of