The stranger was walking impatiently to and fro the small apartment when Mr.Price entered; and then, turning to the clergyman a countenance handsome and striking, but yet more prepossessing from its expression of frankness than from the regularity of its features,--he stopped short, held out his hand, and said, with a gay laugh, as he glanced over the parson's threadbare and slovenly costume, "My poor Caleb!--what a metamorphosis!--I should not have known you again!" "What! you! Is it possible, my dear fellow ?--how glad I am to see you! What on earth can bring you to such a place?
No! not a soul would believe me if I said I had seen you in this miserable hole." "That is precisely the reason why I am here.

Sit down, Caleb, and we'll talk over matters as soon as our landlord has brought up the materials for--" "The milk-punch," interrupted Mr.Price, rubbing his hands.
"Ah, that will bring us back to old times, indeed!" In a few minutes the punch was prepared, and after two or three preparatory glasses, the stranger thus commenced: "My dear Caleb, I am in want of your assistance, and above all of your secrecy." "I promise you both beforehand.

It will make me happy the rest of my life to think I have served my patron--my benefactor--the only friend I possess." "Tush, man! don't talk of that: we shall do better for you one of these days.

But now to the point: I have come here to be married--married, old boy! married!" And the stranger threw himself back in his chair, and chuckled with the glee of a schoolboy.
"Humph!" said the parson, gravely.

"It is a serious thing to do, and a very odd place to come to." "I admit both propositions: this punch is superb.