"No, no, sir; he was dead three or four
years before I came here—and that was as long
ago as the year twenty-seven. I got this place,
sir," persisted my talkative old friend, "through
the clerk before me leaving it. They say he was
driven out of house and home by his wife—and
she's living still, down in the new town there.
I don't know the rights of the story, myself; all
I know is, I got the place. Mr. Wansborough
got it for me—the son of my old master that I
was telling you of. He's a free, pleasant
gentleman as ever lived; rides to the hounds, keeps
his pointers, and all that. He's vestry-clerk
here now, as his father was before him."

"Did you not tell me your former master
lived at Knowlesbury?" I asked, calling to mind
the long story about the precise gentleman of
the old school, with which my talkative friend
had wearied me before he opened the register.

"Yes, to be sure, sir," replied the clerk.
"Old Mr. Wansborough lived at Knowlesbury;
and young Mr. Wansborough lives there too."

"You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like
his father before him. I am not quite sure that
I know what a vestry-clerk is."

"Don't you indeed, sir?—and you come from
London, too! Every parish church, you know,
has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk. The
parish-clerk is a man like me (except that I've
got a deal more learning than most of them—
though I don't boast of it). The vestry-clerk is
a sort of an appointment that the lawyers get;
and if there's any business to be done for the
vestry, why there they are to do it. It's just the
same in London. Every parish church there
has got its vestry-clerk—and, you may take my
word for it, he's sure to be a lawyer."

"Then, young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer?"

"Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High-
street, Knowlesbury—the old offices that his
father had before him. The number of times
I've swept those offices out, and seen the old
gentleman come trotting in on his white pony,
looking right and left all down the street, and
nodding to everybody! Bless you, he was a
popular character!— he'd have done in London!"

"How far is it to Knowlesbury from here?"

"A long stretch, sir," said the clerk, with
that exaggerated idea of distances and that
vivid perception of difficulties in getting from
place to place, peculiar to country people." Nigh
on five mile, I can tell you!"

It was still early in the forenoon. There was
plenty of time for a walk to Knowlesbury and
back again to Welmingham; and there was no
person probably in the town who was fitter to
assist my inquiries about the character and
position of Sir Percival's mother, before her
marriage, than the local solicitor. I resolved to go
at once to Knowlesbury on foot.

"Thank you kindly, sir," said the clerk, as I
slipped:ny little present into his hand. "Are
you really going to walk all the way to Knowlesbury
and back ? Well! you're strong on your
legs, too—and what a blessing that is, isn't it?
There's the road; you can't miss it. I wish I
was going your way—it's pleasant to meet with
gentlemen from London, in a lost corner like
this. One hears the news. Wish you good
morning, sir—and thank you kindly, once more."

As I left the church behind me, I looked back
—and there were the two men again, on the road
below, with a third in their company:—the short
man in black, whom I had traced to the railway
the evening before.

The three stood talking together for a little
while— then separated. Ihe man in black went
away by himself towards Welmingham; the
other two remained together, evidently waiting
to follow me, as soon as I walked on.

I proceeded on my way, without letting the
fellows see that I took any special notice of
them. They caused me no conscious irritation
of feeling at that moment—on the contrary,
they rather revived my sinking hopes. In
the surprise of discovering the evidence of
the marriage, I had forgotten the inference I
had drawn, on first perceiving the men in the
neighbourhood of the vestry. Their reappearance
reminded me that Sir Percival had
anticipated my visit to Old Welmingham church, as
the next result of my interview with Mrs.
Catherick—otherwise, he would never have placed
his spies there to wait for me. Smoothly and
fairly as appearances looked in the vestry, there
was something wrong beneath them—there was
something in the register-book, for aught I knew,
that I had not discovered yet.

"I shall come back," I thought to myself, as
I turned for a farewell look at the tower of the
old church. " I shall trouble the cheerful clerk
a second time to conquer the perverse lock, and
to open the vestry door."

NATURAL SELECTION.

IT is well for Mr. Charles Darwin, and a comfort
to his friends, that he is living now, instead
of having lived in the sixteenth century; it is
even well that he is a British subject, and not a
native of Austria, Naples, or Rome. Men have
been kept for long years in durance, and even
put to the rack and the stake, for the commission
of offences minor to the publication of ideas
less in opposition to the notions held by the
powers that be.

But we have come upon more tolerant times.
If a man can calmly support his heresy by
reasons, the heresy will be listened to; and, in the
end, will be either received or refuted, or simply
neglected and forgotten. Mr. Darwin also
enjoys the benefit of the bygone heresies of
previous heretics; one heresy prepares the way for,
and weakens the shock occasioned by, another.
Astronomical and geological innovations render
possible the acceptance of doctrines that would
have made people's hair stand on end three
centuries ago. This is an enormous progress; for
what are three or four centuries in the history
of the human race? What, in the history of the
world? Truth is a bugbear which is fast losing
its terrors: we are getting more and more
accustomed to it, and are less and less afraid to