not to be very ready to tell Miss Alice that there is no chance of her meeting her father any

"Certainly not. Certainly not. I am not clear on the point myself, and never professed to be so. It is only when they build up upon their absurd superstitions-But go."

Alice was brought in, and was not long without a friend by her side. Mrs. Lambert, who had been too far off to hear the news, had observed from the high summerhouse the crowd just leaving the field, and moving along the road. She had hastily descended, and had joined the people just as they were passing the church,-just in time to hear the remarks upon the tolling of the bell.

"Ay; that's for the gaining of his lawsuit, -and much good it will do him now! They say he was loth to come abroad this morning, because he expected good news of his lawsuit."

"He did worse in beginning that lawsuit than in coming abroad this morning. "Tis my opinion that it was that lawsuit that killed him."

"Did ye hear his order about the wool-tithe, as he went by the pool this morning? So proud! He desired it might be set out for him against he came back."

"I hope, friend," Mrs. Lambert had observed, "that thou art observing these things rather as a lesson on the frailness of life, than as taunting the departed."

The man thought that if the vicar had been paid like the dissenting ministers of the next

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town, and had given himself up to his office, without extorting tithes, his life would have been no more uncertain than any other man's. He should not say this the less now that the vicar was being carried dead before him, than he had always said it when the vicar was standing up in the pulpit on Sundays, or handling fleeces on Mondays.

Where were all Alice's friends ?-Uncle Jerom was following the body. Mrs. Byrne was nowhere to be seen. It was many days before she visited Alice; and when she came, she could do nothing but weep. Mrs. Byrne was remarked by every one to be an altered woman from that day.

It

Byrne was in the crowd; but Alice was afraid of him, and always kept out of his way. Charles and Joseph were in pursuit of the murderer, -whom, however, they could not find. is believed to this day, that he was harboured by some one in the neighbourhood; or he could not have evaded the strict search instituted by the magistrates, as soon as the event became known to them.

"I am glad you are come, Mrs. Lambert," said Mr. Mackintosh, when she made her appearance, after delaying a moment to recover an appearance of calmness. "I am glad you are come. We do not know what to do with this poor child."

"Thou hast not the heart to attack her faith at such a moment; and thou dost not know how to speak on matters of faith, but in the way of

attack. Is that it, friend Mackintosh ?-I agree with thee, that there is no worldly comfort which will to-day soothe this poor child."

"All you say about my fondness for attack may be very true; but see whether it has half the effect in this parish of the superstition of its pastor,-or of the system which made him its pastor:-I care not which may claim the honour of doing most mischief."

I grant that thy principles have led to no murder here, and that the vicar would have been wise to ask himself, while censuring thee, whether he was not playing thy game for thee better than thou couldst do it for thyself. But, friend, that is no excuse for thy being as intolerant to others as the church has been to thee. Between you, religion (or, as thou wouldst say, morals) has had so little chance, that I would not advise either of you to boast of the other's delinquencies, lest the argument should end in the display of thine own.-I will only just mention the name of Byrne, as a sanction to my charge."

"You do not think he is the. "And Mr. Mackintosh's countenance now showed some emotion.

"I have heard no one named as the mur derer," Mrs. Lambert quietly replied.

Mr. Mackintosh presently repented having allowed Alice to be brought in. It made him completely wretched. Whether her grief was ungovernable, as at first, or mild and reasonable, as it was when Mrs. Lambert had been with her

awhile, it was equally painful to him. He could do nothing with minds but question and taunt them; and here, where the mind was too childish to be questioned to any purpose, and too much harassed to allow of taunting, there was no inducement to him to bear to witness the suffering. When he was tired of being first ashamed of his own helplessness, and then of being cross with his housekeeper, (who would not quarrel with him, because she saw he was trying to carry off some troublesome tenderness) he seized his hat, and walked out.-Mrs. Lambert observed, that he went in the direction of Byrne's cottage.

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CHAPTER VIII.

BENEFIT OF CLERGY.

SIR WILLIAM HOOD (who was travelling abroad) supposed, like everybody else, that the vicar was alone to blame for what had happened. Nobody but those on the spot,-none but the sufferers, -dreamed of finding fault with the system under which precisely the same grievances might recur. They saw but too well that the virtues of the clergyman must, under such a system, injure himself or them. If his virtues were like those of the late vicar, centring in zeal for the church, he would oppress the parish as the late vicar had done, If they consisted of disinterestedness

and mercy, they must injure himself in his worldly interests. The same temptations must also again beset the parishioners ;-temptation to withhold the extreme dues of a moderate pastor, and to defraud a strict one. The sufferers agreed, in short, with him who said of the tithe system, "It has made the clergyman's income to fall with his virtues, and to rise with his bad qualities; just as it has made the parishioner to lose by being ingenuous, and to save by dishonesty." They mourned over their liability to a repetition of their grievances; and their only comfort was in the hope that Peterson would not be again appointed to rule over them.

In this hope they were not disappointed. It was thought fitting by the ordinary and impropriator, that the circumstances of the scene should be changed as much as possible, in order that future irritation might be avoided; and Peterson received notice that his services would not be required by the future incumbent. He quarrelled with the vicar's executor, before going out of office, respecting the amount of rent due for tithes received up to the day of the owner's death, which unfortunately left room for a dispute of this kind, from not having happened on a quarter-day. The vicar's tithes were collected in kind by the churchwardens, for the benefit of the future incumbent, the services of the curate being meantime paid out of the fund. Sir William Hood appointed another agent to collect his tithes.

During Jerom's residence at the vicarage,→→