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 “Oh! settling the Dissenters—were you? Was Malone settling the Dissenters? It sounded to me much more like settling his co-apostles. You were quarrelling together; making almost as much noise—you three alone—as Moses Barraclough, the preaching tailor, and all his hearers, are making in the methodist chapel down yonder, where they are in the thick of a revival. I know whose fault it is—it is yours, Malone.”

“Mine! sir?”

“Yours, sir. Donne and Sweeting were quiet before you came, and would be quiet if you were gone. I wish when you crossed the Channel, you had left your Irish habits behind you. Dublin student ways won’t do here: the proceedings which might pass unnoticed in a wild bog and mountain district in Connaught will, in a decent English parish, bring disgrace on those who indulge in them, and, what is far worse, on the sacred institution of which they are merely the humble appendages.”

There was a certain dignity in the little elderly gentleman’s manner of rebuking these youths; though it was not, perhaps, quite the dignity most appropriate to the occasion. Mr. Helstone—standing straight as a ramrod—looking keen as a kite, presented, despite his clerical hat, black coat, and gaiters, more the air of a veteran officer chiding his subalterns, than of a venerable priest exhorting his sons in the faith. Gospel mildness—apostolic benignity, never seemed to have breathed their