which extended considerably beyond his
usual dinner-hour.

At last Barnley Combe was blest with a
fitting minister in the Rev. Peony Flush. In
the season, and out of the season also, he was
equally earnest and efficient ; and was not
only patronised by the aristocracy, but beloved
by the poor. Although he was my dear and
intimate friend indeed, it is not through the
prejudice of friendship that I assert he was the
friend of us all. His figure was tall and thin
to attenuity ; he was nearly bald, with a
complexion like a girl's, and an expression like a
saint's ; as dispassionate, as moral, as noble,
as simply religious a being as ever walked
this world of sin and vanity. I think he
understood, sympathised with, palliated,
pitied, rebuked, such as were the contrary, in
a manner that the most universal and charitable
Christianity could alone inspire. His
simplicity was a real nobility ; and, from
never having mixed with the world (save
in a peculiarly secluded university life),
he was quite untainted with that false and
degrading respect that is so generally paid to
"position," without regard to wisdom or to
virtue. Briton as he was, and yet exempt
from the national foible, it is not to be
supposed that he had no weakness ; he was
the shyest — the most painfully modest — man
I ever knew ; and he oftentimes suffered
in consequence most cruelly. He was the
man who went most out of his way to avoid
hurting people's feelings, and for the sake of
delicacy ; and, as usually happens, he was
treading upon people's mental toes continuously.
When he first came among us, and
was furnishing his cottage, and getting introduced
to his future parishioners, I remember
calling with him (on our way to the market-town)
upon a farmer who had a club-foot. It
was not long before poor Flush, who was not
aware of this, and was very near-sighted,
observed with a smile, that our host seemed
to take excellent care to keep himself out of
the dirt among the lanes. "What a sensible
boot that is of yours, Mr. Layman ; why, it's
treble soled!" And, before he had
recovered himself from the flame of blushes
into which he burst upon the discovery of
this mistake, he informed Mrs. Layman and
her four daughters, that the object of our
expedition into the town was to procure
him (Peony Flush) "a pair of comfortable
drawers," meaning thereby a chest, I suppose,
but sending the whole company into shrieks
of laughter, and suffusing himself from top to
toe with a beautiful rose colour. These sort
of things, he confessed to me, annoyed him
for months afterwards, oppressing him like
sins ; and I could not forbear remarking,
"Why, Flush, how will you ever have the
face to propose to the future Mrs. P. F.?"
He rose-coloured in such a manner at this,
that I said, "Come, Peony, tell us all about
it at once, do," which accordingly, after a
little pressing, he did.

"I was indeed," he began, "once engaged
to be married I believe, (how I went so far
as that is a marvel to me still), but an incident
of so frightful a character took place as
to put the matter entirely out of the question.
I was a young undergraduate, spending the
summer with a reading party at the Irish
lakes, when I met with — with Lucy, and got,
in short, to be accepted. She was residing
with her mother, in the same hotel in
Killarney as ourselves, and we all met every
day. We boated on the lake together, and
fished, and sang, and read. We landed on
the wooded islands in the soft summer evenings,
to take our tea in gipsey fashion, and to
sketch ; but she and I mostly whispered—
not about love at all, as I remember, but of
the weather and the rubric ; only it seemed
so sweet to sink our voices and speak low and
soft. Once, in a party over the moors, while
I was leading her pony over some boggy
ground, I caught her hand by mistake instead
of her bridle, and she did not snatch it away.
It was the heyday and the prime of my life,
my friend, and that youth of the spirit which
no power can ever more renew. I knew
what she felt, and what would please her, as
soon as the feeling and the wish themselves
were born. Our thought — my thought at
least, 'leapt out to wed with thought, ere
thought could wed itself with speech.' She
took a fancy to a huge mastiff dog belonging
to a fisherman ; and I bought it for her at
once, although it was terribly savage, and,
(except for Lucy's liking it) not either good
or beautiful. Its name, also — the only one it
would answer to, and sometimes it would not
to that — was Towser, not a name for a lady's
pet at all, and scarcely for a gentleman's.
There was a little secluded field, hedged in
by a coppice, which sloped into the lake,
about a mile from the hotel ; and there Lucy
agreed (for the first time) to meet me alone.
I was to be there, before breakfast, at eight
o'clock in the morning, and you may be sure
I was there at six — with Towser. Perhaps
I was never happier than at that particular
time. The universal nature seemed in
harmony with my blissful feelings. The sun
shone out bright and clear, so that the fresh
morning breezes could scarcely cool the
pleasant throbbing of my blood ; but the blue
rippling waves of the lake looked irrepressibly
tempting, and I could not resist a swim.
Just a plunge and out again, thought I ; for
though I had such plenty of time to spare, I
determined to be dressed and ready for the
interview an hour at least before the
appointed time. Lucy might, like myself, be a
little earlier ; and at all events, with such
an awful consequence in possible
apprehension, I would run the shadow of a risk.
'Mind my clothes, mind them,' said I
to Towser (who took his seat thereon, at once,
sagaciously enough), for I had heard of such
things as clothes being stolen from unconscious
dippers before them, with results not to be