was the unconscious subject of them, was not known; but at sight of him-particularly if he were seen, as frequently happened, in the rector's neighbourhood-people shrugged their shoulders and lifted their eyebrows, and expressed a great many severe things without using their tongues.

To the circle of the rector's personal friends the rumours did not reach. That was natural enough. To tell a person that his or her intimate friend is a forger or a swindler is a piquant but somewhat perilous task. And no one mentioned the matter to the Hammonds, or to the archdeacon, or to the Homfrays of Holberton, or the other county people living round, with whom it must be confessed that, after that dinner-party at the Town House, he consorted perhaps too exclusively. It might have been thought that even the townsfolk, seeing the young fellow's frank face passing daily about their streets, and catching the glint of his fair curly hair when the wintry sunlight pierced the lanthorn windows and fell in gules and azure on the reading-desk, would have been slow to believe such tales of him.

They might have been; but circumstances and Mr. Bonamy were against him. The lawyer did not circulate the stories; he had not mentioned them out-of-doors, nor, for aught the greater part of Claversham knew, had heard of them at all. But all his weight-and with the Low-Church middle class in the town it was great—was thrown into the scale against the rector. It was known that he did not trust the rector. It was known that day by day his frown on meeting the rector grew darker and darker. And the why and the wherefore not being understood-for no one thought of questioning the lawyer, or observed how frequently of late the curate happed upon him in the street or the reading-room-many concluded that he knew more of the clergyman's antecedents than appeared.

There was one person, and perhaps only one, who openly circulated and rejoiced in these rumours. That was a man whom Lindo would least have suspected; one whom he met daily in the street, and passed with a careless nod and a word, not dreaming for an instant that the spiteful little busybody was concerning himself with him. The man was Dr. Gregg, the snappish, ill-bred surgeon who had chanced upon Lindo and the Bonamy girls breakfasting together at Oxford. The sight, it will be remembered, had not pleased him. He had long had a sneaking liking for Miss Kate himself, and had only refrained from trying

to win her because he still more desired to be of the best set' in Claversham. He had been ashamed, indeed, up to this time of his passion; but, reading on that occasion unmistakable admiration of the girl in the young clergyman's face, and being himself rather cavalierly treated by Lindo, he had somewhat changed his views. The girl had acquired increased value in his eyes. Another's appreciation had increased his own, and, merely as an incident, the man who had effected this had earned his hearty jealousy and ill-will. And this, while Lindo thought him a vulgar but harmless little man.

But if the rector, immersed in new social engagements, did not see whither he was tending, others, though they knew nothing of the unpleasant tales we have mentioned, saw more clearly. The archdeacon, coming into town one Saturday five or six weeks after Lindo's arrival, did his business early and turned his steps towards the rectory. He felt pretty sure of finding the young fellow at home, because he knew it was his sermon day. A few yards from the door he fell in, as it chanced, with Stephen Clode. The two stood together talking, while the archdeacon waited to be admitted, and presently the curate said, 'If you wish to see the rector, archdeacon, I am afraid you will be disappointed. He is not at home.'

'But I thought that he was always at home on Saturdays?' Generally he is,' Clode replied, looking down and tracing a pattern with the point of his umbrella. But he is away to-day.' 'Where?' asked the archdeacon rather abruptly.

'He has gone to the Homfrays' at Holberton. They have some sort of party to-day, and the Hammonds drove him over.' Despite himself, the curate's tone was sullen, his manner constrained.

6

Oh!' said the archdeacon thoughtfully. The Homfrays were his very good friends, but of the county families round Claversham they were reckoned the fastest and most frivolous. And he sagely suspected that a man in Lindo's delicate position might be wiser if he chose other companions. Lindo seems to see a good deal of the Hammonds,' he remarked after a pause.

'Yes,' said Clode. It is very natural.'

'Oh, very natural,' the archdeacon hastened to say; but his tone clearly expressed the opinion that 'toujours Hammonds' was not a good bill of fare for the rector of Claversham. Very natural, of course. Only,' he continued, taking courage, for he really liked the rector, 'you have had some experience here, and

I think it would be well if you were to give him a hint not to be too exclusive. A town rector must not be too exclusive. It does not do.'

'No,' said Clode.

'It is different in the country, of course.

And then there is

Mr. Bonamy. He is unpleasant, I know, and yet he is honest after a fashion. Lindo must beware of getting across with him. He has done nothing about the sheep yet, has he?'

'No.'

'Well, do not let him, if you can help it. You are not urging him on in that, are you?'

'On the contrary,' the curate answered rather warmly, 'I have all through told him that I would not express an opinion on it. If anything, I have discouraged him in the matter.'

'Well, I hope he will let it drop now. I hope he will let it drop.' They parted then, and the archdeacon, sagely revolving in his mind the evils of exclusiveness as they affected town parsons, strolled back to the hotel where he put up his horses. On his way, casting his eye down the wide quiet street, with its oldfashioned houses on this side and that, he espied Mr. Bonamy's tall spare figure approaching, and he purposely passed the inn and went to meet him. As a county magnate the archdeacon could afford to know Mr. Bonamy, and even to be friendly with him. I am not sure, indeed, that he had not a sneaking liking and respect for the rugged, snappish, self-made man.

'How do you do, Mr. Bonamy?' he began loudly and cheerfully. And then, after saying a few words about a proposal to close a road in which he was interested, he slid into a mention of Lindo, with a view to seeing how the land lay. I have just been to call on your rector,' he said.

'You did not find him at home,' Bonamy replied, with a queer grin, and a little jerk of his head which sent his hat still farther back.

'No, I was unlucky.'

'Not more than most people,' said the churchwarden, with much enjoyment. I will tell you what it is, Mr. Archdeacon. Mr. Lindo is better suited for your position. He would make a very good archdeacon. With a pair of horses and a park phaeton and a small parish, and a little general superintendence of the district -with that and the life of a country gentleman he would get on capitally,'

There was just so much of a jest in the words that the.clergyman had no choice but to laugh. 'Come, Bonamy,' he said goodhumouredly, he is young yet.'

'Oh, yes, he is quite out of place here in that respect, too! replied the lawyer naively.

'But he will improve,' the archdeacon pleaded.

'I am not sure that he will have the chance,' Mr. Bonamy answered in his gentlest tone.

The archdeacon was so far from understanding him that he did not answer save by raising his eyebrows. Could Bonamy really be so foolish, he wondered, as to think he could get rid of a beneficed clergyman? The archdeacon was surprised, and yet that was all he could make of it.

'He is away at Mr. Homfray's of Holberton now,' the lawyer continued, condemnation in his thin voice.

6

'Well, there is no harm in that, Mr. Bonamy,' replied the archdeacon, somewhat offended, as long as he is back to do the duty to-morrow.'

Mr. Bonamy grunted. A one-day-a-week duty is a very fine thing,' he said. 'You clergymen are to be envied, Mr. Archdeacon!'

'You would be a great deal more to be envied yourself, Mr. Bonamy,' the magnate returned, losing his temper at last, if you did not carp at everything and look at other people through distorted glasses. Fie! here is a young clergyman, new to the parish, and, instead of helping him, you find fault with everything he does. For shame! For shame, Mr. Bonamy!'

'Ah!' the lawyer answered drily, quite unabashed by the other's attack, 'you did not mean to say that when you came across the street to me. But—well, least said soonest mended, and I will wish you good evening. You will have a wet drive home, I am afraid, Mr. Archdeacon.'

And he put up his umbrella and went his way sturdily, while the archdeacon, crossing to his carriage, which was standing in front of the inn, entertained an uncomfortable suspicion that he had done more harm than good by his intercession. I am afraid,' he said to himself, as he handled the reins and sent his horses down the street in a fashion of which he was ordinarily not a little proud'I am afraid that there is trouble in front of that young man. I am afraid there is.'

If he had known all, he would have shaken his head still more gravely.

(To be continued.)

145

SOME PAGAN EPITAPHS.

IN the Reading-room of the British Museum, on the lower shelves of Press No. 2608, there stand some very big books. They are great folios, heavy and ponderous, hard to lift and awkward to handle. They are collections of Greek and Latin inscriptions. There are the five volumes of Boeckh. There is the colossal Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum of the Berlin Academy, which already numbers eighteen volumes. There are the contributions of our own countrymen, which are only just commencing. The contents of these big books have been gathered from all parts of the ancient world. Generations of scholars have contributed the results of their copying or ingenious guessing, and the work is still going on. By and by everything will be taken down, every letter that survives in bronze or marble will be gathered into these folios. Meantime a great deal has been done, and these ponderous tomes stand there in Press No. 2608 as a happy hunting-ground for the antiquarian, the philologist, and the historian.

But it is not with any very erudite intentions that I have been disturbing the repose of these heavy folios. The object of this paper is not to unsettle orthography or to reconstruct history. I have been looking only at the epitaphs, and the few I have selected and copied into my note-book are of purely general interest, and may have some attraction for readers who don't care about the internal economy of Athens or the administration of the Roman provinces. I cannot say that I have found many of much literary merit, though I have looked at a great number of inscriptions. But age lends some interest even to the most commonplace things, and these epitaphs have the dignity of many centuries to recommend them.

Perhaps the first impression one gets in looking over these pagan inscriptions is, that the ancient stone-cutters and epitaphmakers were very much like their modern successors. Like them they had their favourite epitaphs which they repeated over and over again. They had their stock phrases, their set forms. They had a fondness for verse and an inability to write verses that would scan. They made pretty much the same kinds of mistakes as