The following letter was sent to the rector’s unmarried sister: 

     “Januarius Prima, 1840.

     “CHARUS DOMINA,

“That the humble Sacrista should be still retained on the tablets of your memory is an unexpected pleasure.  Your gift, as a criterion of your esteem, will be often looked at with delight, and be carefully preserved, as a memorial of your friendship; and for which I beg to return my sincere thanks.  May the meridian sunshine of happiness brighten your days through the voyage of life; and may your soul be borne on the wings of seraphic angels to the realms of bliss eternal in the world to come is the sincere wish and fervent prayer of Charus Domina, your most obedient, most respectful, most obliged servant,

     “GULIELMUS HINTONIENSIS,

     “Rusticus Sacrista.

     “GRATITUDE

     “A gift from the virtuous, the fair, and the good,
       From the affluent to the humble and low,
     Is a favour so great, so obliging and kind,
       To acknowledge I scarcely know how. 
     I fain would express the sensations I feel,
       By imploring the blessing of Heaven
     May be showered on the lovely, the amiable maid,
       Who this gift to Sacrista has given. 
     May the choicest of husbands, the best of his kind,
       Be hers by the appointment of Heaven! 
     And may sweet smiling infants as pledges of love
       To crown her connubium be given.”

The following is a characteristic note of this worthy clerk, which differs somewhat from the notices usually sent to vicars as reminders of approaching weddings: 

“REV.  SIR,

“I hope it has not escaped your memory that the young couple at Clack are hoping to offer incense at the shrine of Venus this morning at the hour of ten.  I anticipate the bridegrooms’s anxiety.

“RUSTICUS SACRISTA.”

He was somewhat curious on the subject of fashionable ladies’ dresses, and once asked the rector “in what guise feminine respectability usually appeared at an evening party?” When a low dress was described to him, he blushed and shivered and exclaimed, “Then methinks, sir, there must be revelations of much which modesty would gladly veil.”  He was terribly overcome on one occasion when he met in the rector’s drawing-room one evening some ladies who were attired, as any other gentlewomen would be, in low gowns.

William Hinton was, in spite of his air of importance and his inflated phraseology, a simple, single-minded, humble soul.  When the rector visited him on his death-bed, he greeted Mr. Young with as much serenity of manner as if he had been only going on a journey to a far country for which he had long been preparing.  “Well, reverend and dear sir.  Here we are, you see! come to the nightcap scene at last!  Doubtless you can discern that I am dying.  I am not afraid to die.  I wish your prayers....  I say I