ous among the wealthy persons whom I mentioned to you just now.'

St. Jude's was one of those spacious, modern churches which, without being frankly ugly, like the churches of fifty years ago, are yet almost more distressing than they to the appreciative, by reason of that effect of vulgarity which attaches to pretentious failure. It was of the Victorian-Gothic order of architecture, and was not a very happy specimen of that style, its proportions being all wrong, and its interior ornamentation at once poor and florid. There was a violent blue and yellow window at the east end; encaustic tiles had been unsparingly applied to the floor and walls of the chancel; the whole edifice was cold, glaring, and smelt of varnish.

These details Brian hastily noted as he followed his conductor into the building, where three persons, conversing together in the aisle, appeared to have been awaiting his arrival, with a view, no doubt, to putting him through a sort of informal test-examination. One of these, a burly man, who wore a long black beard and no moustache, advanced to meet the new-comers with a certain air of proprietorship.

"How do you do to-day, Mr. Peareth?" said he condescendingly. "Mrs. Peareth and the young ones keeping pretty well, I hope? That's right. I was just passing the remark to my friend Mr. Prodgers here that we ought to have a handsome west window put in, and his answer was, 'So we will, when we can afford it.' Well, we shall seewe shall see."

Obviously Dubbin the Magnificent. "And this," he continued, turning to Brian, "is our young aspirant, I presume? Well, sir, I hope you will suit us; and so, no doubt, do you. I have had the organ opened, so you can give us a tune as soon as you please.'

It seemed to be the best thing to do. Brian, with some inward amusement, played such a "tune" as he thought would be likely to give satisfaction to his audience, and when he had finished, the man with the beard cried, "Brayvo!" while one of his satellites said in an audible undertone,

"I don't know whether you would wish to put any questions to the candidate, Mr. Dubbin, sir ?"

"Well, sir," answered Mr. Dubbin, evidently pleased, "it ought to be; for it cost a pretty penny, I can tell you. But what I always say is, pay a good price and get a good article. That's my system all through, and I consider that we're justified in applying it to our organist as well as to our organ. Your salary, sir, will be seventy pounds per annum.”

While Brian was meditating over this anti-climax, Mr. Peareth was heard to murmur something about character and testimonials. But the great Dubbin waved these unworthy suspicions aside.

"Never mind about that, Mr. Peareth, I know a gentleman when I see one," he was so kind as to declare, "and the information that we have received will be sufficient. Seventy pounds, Mr. Segrave, is not a large sum-did you speak, Mr. Prodgers? Oh! I thought I heard you make some observation. Seventy pounds, I say, is not a large sum; it is a paltry sum, and I should be precious sorry to have to live upon it myself, I know; but such as it is, it's a little more than we have given hitherto, and if you're disposed to undertake music or singing lessons, Mr. Segrave, you'll soon establish a lucrative connection. With regard to your church duties, you will be required to take two choral services on Sundays, and one on Saints' days; choir practice three times a week for boys and once for men and young women as well. At Christmas and Easter you may find a little extra drilling necessary; but, with these exceptions, the remainder of your time will be at your own disposal."

So far Mr. Dubbin had spoken as one who owns no superior; but now he seemed suddenly to recollect the presence of the Vicar and said, "I believe I have stated matters correctly, have I not, Mr. Peareth?"

66

Quite correctly," answered Mr. Peareth, rubbing his hands nervously.

"And now," continued Mr. Dubbin, addressing himself once more to Brian, "I must tell you that, although we wish our services to be attractive and in harmony with modern feeling, we are distinctly opposed to Ritualism. I mention this because I understand that you have been a good deal mixed up with ritualistic parsons. Nothing of the sort here, sir, if you please. sense about confession or penance or purgatory, or any other Romish inventions."

No non

"Really," observed Mr. Peareth, plucking up a little spirit, "it is not usual for an organist

"An organist, sir," interrupted Mr. Dubbin severely, "is brought into contact with

the young; an organist may be a most pernicious person-a snake in the grass. I don't make any accusation against our friend here; I merely caution him.

"The caution is not needed," said Brian smiling; "I shall confine myself strictly to my duties."

"That's right, young man; you stick to that rule and you'll get on in the world. Well, Mr. Peareth, I think we may consider this matter settled; and now, as I have other things to attend to, I'll wish you good morning."

"I am afraid," said Mr. Peareth timidly, as Brian and he walked away from the church, "that you may have found Mr. Dubbin a little

The phrase seemed to delight Mr. Peareth immensely. He rubbed his hands and laughed softly for several minutes.

"Well, well, well!" he murmured. "But it doesn't do to say so, you know, Mr. Segrave. At times, I confess, he appears to me to take rather too much upon him; but he has been a most generous benefactor-we mustn't forget that. Mrs. Peareth thinks I ought not to allow myself to be-well, as she says, 'sat upon'; but I am a family man-a man with a very large family-and I find that it is best to submit to things. So long as no question of principle is involved, that is not an unjustifiable attitude, I trust." He looked appealingly at his companion, and Brian answered, in a cheerful tone,

"Oh, no; I shouldn't think so."

"You see," Mr. Peareth went on, "in such a neighbourhood as this one cannot expect to find social intercourse exactly what one would choose. My congregation is composed almost exclusively of rich tradesmen; Mr. Dubbin himself is a wholesale boot and shoe manufacturer, though I believe he began as a small shopkeeper. They are excellent people, many of them; but-well, it is refreshing to meet with a member of one's own class now and then; and if you ever feel lonely, Mr. Segrave, I hope you will drop in upon us informally. We shall always be very pleased to see you."

The good man had evidently discarded his first misgivings and was inclined to be extremely friendly. He found cheap and not uncomfortable quarters for Brian over a baker's shop, and there, in the course of a

few days, our hero installed himself. At the end of a fortnight he wrote to Monckton :

"I am prospering exceedingly, and at this rate, I shouldn't wonder if you were to see your hundred pounds back some fine day. My salary is not magnificent; but I have got lots of pupils already, and am earning about six pounds a week! What do you think of that for a beginning? I like my work, and I believe I shall make the choir quite tidy in time, though I wish I could turn out the young women and put the boys into surplices. However, I daren't say a word about that, because they are very Protestant hereabouts, and St. Jude's is considered to be rather dangerously high in its ritual even now. Mr. Peareth, the vicar, is a dear old fellow, a little out of his element here, and in mortal fear of offending his rich parishioners, who ride over him roughshod. I should like to get him appointed to a canonry. He has a good little overworked wife and a host of small children. Some of my pupils would amuse you, I think. Notably, a Miss Julia Sparks, a young lady fresh from a boarding-school, with large black eyes which she rolls at me till I don't know which way to look. She is dying of curiosity to hear my history and, I fancy, takes me for a prince in disguise. Write me a long letter and tell me all about Kingscliff. Has Puttick been backsliding again? Has Miss Huntley carried out her intention of becoming a district visitor? &c., &c., &c. Answer all the questions I don't ask, and "Believe me,

"Ever your attached friend,
"BRIAN SEGRAVE."

Monckton replied promptly, and with as much fulness as could be expected of a busy man. He reported all the local intelligence that he could think of to his correspondent; but, unluckily, in his anxiety to answer the questions that Brian had not asked, he omitted to notice one of those that he had, and never mentioned Miss Huntley's name at all. On the other hand, he had a word. or two of serious warning to say about Miss Sparks. "It is all very well," he wrote, "to laugh at the young lady who makes eyes at you, but jokes of that kind sometimes turn out to be no laughing matter. If I were you I should take care to have a third person present at Miss Sparks's music lessons."

Brian smiled at an admonition which he naturally thought superfluous. Indeed, he was too inexperienced to take in its signi

ficance, and fancied that Monckton was cautioning him against falling in love with his pupil. He had, as we know, the best of securities against doing that; and so, in serene consciousness of invulnerability, he continued to give Miss Sparks musical instruction twice a week, and never attempted to detain Mrs. Sparks when that corpulent matron rose and waddled out of the room, as she usually did after listening to her daughter's performance for five minutes or so.

The girl was rather pretty, and not more vulgar than the generality of her class. She was over-dressed, as they all are nowadays; she wore her hair in a caricature of the prevailing fashion, as they all do; she was fairly well educated, which is perhaps more than can be said for most of them; and there really was no harm in her, if there was no great good. Unfortunately, she had conceived a romantic affection for Brian, and this was, on many grounds, a pity. He, for his part, liked her after a fashion, and found her very diverting. She was apparently under the influence of an intense desire to learn who he was and where he came from, also (since he remained impervious to the broadest hints) of an impulse to reveal all her own secrets to him. This she was free to indulge, and she did so with more or less of lucidity. From sundry mysterious allusions Brian gathered that she was not happy, that her parents wished her to bestow her hand where her heart had not been given, and that she was a victim to the customary unsatisfied yearnings.

"Ah, Mr. Segrave," she would sigh, letting her fine eyes roam over the truly hideous but expensively furnished drawing-room which was the scene of these interviews, "wealth and luxury are not what people suppose! You know that, I am sure.

"I have had no experience of either," Brian would reply; "but I should think they were not to be despised."

Whereupon she would shake her head and say reproachfully, "Ah, you're laughing at me!" -as indeed he was.

However, he ceased to laugh at her when he found that laughter really hurt her feelings, for, after all, it is quite possible to be both lackadaisical and sincere, and there is no reason for refusing sympathy to those who are impelled by nature or education to express their emotions in a grotesque manner. Brian, who surmised that this sighing damsel had been crossed in love, felt that she possessed thereby special claims upon his kindly consideration. and although she bored him a

good deal at times, besides often singing false in the choir, to which she belonged, he did his best to befriend her, and divert her mind from sad thoughts by making her work hard-a form of consolation which she scarcely appreciated, yet put up with, as being at any rate better than neglect. The innocent Brian thought that Miss Sparks only made eyes at him because it was her way to make eyes, and when she sang Signor Tosti's "Good-bye" with an intensity of pathos which almost amounted to a howl, he was dense enough to imagine that that heartrending farewell was addressed to some young man in the City whose income might be inadequate to the support of a wife.

So the days and weeks slipped away in a not unpleasant monotony, and Christmas came and went; and though the organist of St. Jude's was not precisely merry at that season he was extremely busy, which does nearly as well, if a man be not too exacting. It was in the early days of the new year that he heard of the imminence of what Miss Sparks had frequently referred to with awful ambiguity as her "Fate." Her father, a brisk little bald-headed man, whom business detained in London from morning to nightfall, informed him one Sunday, after church, that Julia was engaged to be married to Mr. Dubbin.

"We look upon it as a great match for her," the little man said cheerfully, "and I'm glad that the girl has made up her mind to it. It's true that he's a good many years older than she is, but I can't see anything to cry about in that-and he keeps his carriage. She'll be happy enough once she's settled down, though she makes a fine to-do now because he ain't young and handsome. As I tell her, one can't look to have everything."

"I am not sure that I should care to marry my daughter to a man old enough to be her father, even if he did keep a carriage," remarked Brian, feeling bound to put in a word for the hapless Julia.

"Heaven bless you, Mr. Segrave!" returned the other, without taking offence, "she wouldn't do it if she didn't like it. I can't make her marry Dubbin, nor anybody else, she knows that precious well. Girls like a bit of romance, but they like a good position too, and Julia values position just as much as you or me, you may take your oath of that."

This very sensible view of the matter reassured Brian, who thought to himself, "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good; perhaps when she is Mrs. Dubbin she won't want to sing in the choir any more."