"Ah! yes, they're a nuisance, I dare say," Laurence put in, smiling. "Still, it's a charming place, all the same. I have just been poking round the church. There are some wonderfully quaint bits about it. And I like the churchyard."

"I could wish to have the graves levelled, and the head and foot stones placed neatly in line on the confines of the enclosure."

"Oh! no, no; that would destroy the character of the place. We can't carry anything away with us—granted—when we go. And so there's a certain subjective comfort in knowing we leave a little mound of earth and turf behind to mark our resting-place. That's hardly ostentatious, considering our pretensions during life—do you think so?"

Mr. Beal shifted the position of his spectacles. He braced himself.

"The churchyard has been levelled at Bishop's Pudbury," he said. "I had the privilege of being assistant priest there for five years. The archdeacon is considered a man of great taste."

"I should have thought the parishioners would have objected now," Laurence remarked.

"So they did," Mr. Beal replied. "I grieve to say some persons displayed a most illiberal spirit. They called meetings, and behaved in a really seditious manner. Many even became guilty of the sin of schism. They ceased to attend the church services, and frequented dissenting places of worship. The archdeacon was pained; but he felt a principle was at stake. He has long contended that the churchyard is legally the rector's freehold. He therefore felt it a duty to the Church to be firm."

Laurence contemplated the young clergyman with a touch of good-natured amusement, wondering if, with that anæmic physique, he was capable of emulating the militant virtues of the archdeacon-rector of Bishop's Pudbury.

"But about this letter of yours, Mr. Beal," he said. "That's what I came to talk to you about."

"I am afraid my conversation has been a little irrelevant. But—but—" the young man sat opposite to Laurence, shifting his spectacles, and washing his hands in an access of nervousness. "I confess I am not quite myself this morning, Mr. Rivers. I was made an object of public ridicule last night."

"I am very sorry to hear it. How was that?"

"I think I am at liberty to tell you, because the incident took its rise in your uncle, the elder Mr. Rivers', refusal 

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