Besides a minority of at least ten years for L---- is getting very shaky, Miss Thornton, and is still devotedly given to stewed mushrooms.

Nay, my dear lady, don't look distressed, she will make a noble young dowager.

This must be your daughter, Mr.
Thornton--pray introduce me." Mary was introduced, and his Lordship addressed a few kindly commonplaces to her, to which she replied with graceful modesty.

Then he demanded of the Vicar, "where is Dr.Mulhaus, has he been at church this afternoon ?" At that moment the Doctor, attended by the old clerk, was head and shoulders into the old oak chest that contained the parish registers, looking for the book of burials for sixteen hundred and something.

Not being able to get to the bottom, he got bodily in, as into a bath, and after several dives succeeded in fishing it up from the bottom, and standing there absorbed for a few minutes, up to his middle in dusty parchments and angry moths, he got his finger on a particular date, and dashed out of church, book in hand, and hatless, crying, "Vicar, Vicar!" just as the villagers had cleared off, and my lord was moving away with the Vicar to the parsonage, to take tea.
When his Lordship saw the wild dusty figure come running out of the church porch with the parish register in his hand, and no hat on his head, he understood the position immediately.