a dear good girl.”  The “dear good girl” had not the slightest objection to dancing with anybody, dancing being then my predominant passion, and a chair a perfectly satisfactory partner if none other could be come by.  While dancing, I was unpleasantly struck with the decidedly unreverend tone of my partner’s remarks.  Clergymen danced in those days without reproach, but I hope that even in those days of dancing clerks they did not often talk so very much to match the tripping of the light fantastic toe.  My amazement reached its climax when, seeing me exchange signs of amicable familiarity with some one across the room, Mr. F. C——­ said, “Who are you nodding and smiling to?  Oh, your father.  You are very fond of him, ain’t you?” To my enthusiastic reply in the affirmative, he said, “Ah, yes; just so.  I dare say you are.”  And then followed an expression of his filial disrespect for the highest personage in the realm, of such a robust significance as fairly took away my breath.  Surprised into a momentary doubt of my partner’s sobriety, I could only say, “Mr. F. C——­, if you do not change your style of conversation I must sit down and leave you to finish the dance alone.”  He confounded himself in repeated apologies and entreaties that I would finish the dance with him, and as I could not find a word to say to him, he went on eagerly to excuse himself by a short sketch of his life, telling me that he had not been bred to the Church and had the greatest disinclination to taking orders; that he had been trained as a sailor, the navy being the career that he preferred above all others, but that in consequence of the death of a brother he had been literally taken from on board ship, and, in spite of the utmost reluctance on his part, compelled to go into the Church.  “Don’t you think it’s a hard case?” reiterated he, as I still found it difficult to express my opinion either of him or of his “case,” both appearing to me equally deplorable.  At length I suggested that, since he had adopted the sacred calling he professed, perhaps it would be better if he conformed to it at least by outward decency of language and decorum of demeanor.  To this he assented, adding with a sigh, “But, you see, some people have a natural turn for religion; you have, for instance, I’m sure; but you see I have not.”  This appeared to me incontrovertible.  Presently, after a pause, he asked me if I would write a sermon for him, which tribute to my talent for preaching, of which he had just undergone a sample, sent me into fits of laughter, though I replied with some indignation, “Certainly not; I am not a proper person to write sermons, and you ought to write your own!” “Yes,” said he, with rather touching humility, “but you see I can’t,—­not good ones, at least.  I’m sure you could, and I wish you would write one for me; Mrs. N——­ has.”  This statement terminated the singular conversation, which had been the accompaniment to a quadrille.  The vicar of Maple Durham is dead;