“Well, sir,” replied the priest, smiling, “that you know is yet to be determined on; but in the mane time I’ll be happy to hear your business, whatever it is; and, indeed, from your looks, although the Lord knows they’re often treacherous, I tell you that if I can stretch a point to sarve you I will; provided always that I can do so with a good conscience, and provided also that I find your character and conduct entitle you to it.  So, then, I say, let us have at the business you spake of, and to follow up this proposition with suitable energy, what’s your name and occupation? for there’s nothing like knowing the ground a man stands on.  I know you’re a stranger in this neighborhood, for I assure you there is not a face in the parish but I am as well acquainted with as my own, and indeed a great deal betther, in regard that I never shave with a looking-glass.  I tried it once or twice and was near committing suicide in the attempt.”

There was something so kind, frank, yet withal so eccentric, and, as it would seem, so unconsciously humorous in the worthy father’s manner, that the stranger, whilst he felt embarrassed by the good-natured bluntness of his interrogations, could not help experiencing a sensation that was equally novel and delightful, arising as it did from the candor and honesty of purpose that were so evident in all the worthy man did and said.

“I should never have supposed, from the remarkable taste of your dress and your general appearance,” he replied, “that you make your toilet without a looking-glass.”

“It’s a fact, though; neither I nor my worthy father before me ever troubled one; we left them to the girshas and the women; habit is everything, and for that reason I could shave as well at midnight as at the hour of noon.  However, let us pass that by, thank God I can go out with as clane a face, and I trust with as clear a conscience, always barring the passions that Mat Euly puts me into, as some of my neighbors; yet, God forgive me, why should I boast? for I know and feel that I fall far short of my duty in every sense, especially when I reflect how much of poverty and destitution are scattered through this apparently wealthy parish.  God forgive me, then, for the boast I made, for it was both wrong and sinful!”

A touch of feeling which it would be difficult to describe, but which raised him still more highly in the estimation of the stranger, here passed over his handsome and benevolent features, but after it had passed away he returned at once to the object of the stranger’s visit.

“Well,” said he, “to pass now from my omissions and deficiencies, let us return to the point we were talking of; you haven’t told me your name, or occupation, or profession, or business of any kind—­that is, if you have any?”