"Poor fellow, poor fellow," murmured Mr Pecklebury, shaking his head as he prepared to get back on to his knees to continue clipping the garden border. "Mad, or drunk, or both, I'm afraid;" and at that instant an agitated voice said over the neat little privet hedge that divided his step-aunt's garden from the next villa garden

"Oh, Mr Pecklebury, Mr Peoklebury, have you heard the dreadful news! The Vicar's gone!"

It was the lady who had jostled the young man in her hurry a minute before.

"God bless my soul, Miss de Wilkin!" ejaculated Mr Pecklebury, sinking back upon his heels in his surprise. "The Vicar! Gone! Dead! Impossible! Why, only last Sunday

"No, no, not dead, Mr Peoklebury," oried Miss de Wilkin, clasping at herself in profound agitation. "At least we hope he's not dead. We don't know that he's dead. We don't know what he is. We reelly don't. He's merely gone."

"But, God bless my soul! Miss de Wilkin," said Mr Peoklebury, scrambling to his feet, "where to?"

"Nobody knows," said Miss de Wilkin. "They reelly don't. He went up to London for the day by the 8.15 without so much as a bag in the hand five days ago, his housekeeper says; and he's never come back, and there's not been a sight or sound of him since; and they kept it quiet at first, in the hope there would be news of him; but now it's

everywhere, and I heard the rumour from the milkman, and I hurried round to ask; and oh, Mr Pecklebury, it's perfectly true, it reelly is. He is known to have changed at the Junction, like you always have to by the 8.15, but where he went to when he changed nobody knows. He's gone."

"If the Vicar's gone, Eliza Wilkins," said a lofty voice behind them, "there's only one place he's gone to, and that's over to Rome.'

"Oh, Mrs Bath," quavered Miss de Wilkin, clasping at herself.

"And he hadn't far to go either," continued Mrs Bath majestically. "I wonder it's taken him five days, for he was practically there already. The bowings and ourtseyings and processings and workings of the Puddispor congregation could have told anybody that! I regret to hurt your feelings, Eliza Wilkins, but I must refuse to pander. If the Vicar's gone, he's gone over to Rome; and it's where he belongs. Henry, come in to your tea."

"But you don't go over to Rome through Clapham Junction, Step - aunt Bath," protested Mr Pecklebury, struggling against the muddled sensation which the remarks of Mrs Bath not infrequently produced in the brain.

"As it's impossible to get to any part of the Continent from Puddispor except through Clapham Junction, Henry," replied Mrs Bath; "and as I have always understood Rome to be on the Continent, I fail to perceive the force of your conten

tion, the war-dances of the Vicar in Puddispor Church having long been enough to make a dervish turn."

"They turn anyhow, I believe," said Mr Peoklebury.

"Then let them," replied Mrs Bath majestically. "Kindly come in to your tea, Henry." "Wherever the dear Vicar's gone," faltered Miss de Wilkin, clasping at herself, "we all do feel it to be such a mercy he wasn't married, we reelly do. Only think of his poor wife." "I believe the ladies of Puddispor have not waited till now to feel the mercy of the Vicar's not not being married, Eliza Wilkins," replied Mrs Bath, commencing to sweep back to her villa - residence, "and as his wife doesn't exist, I find myself unable to think of her. Henry, come in to your tea."

A few days later Miss de Wilkin, wearing her London costume, addressed Mr Pecklebury across the privet hedge.

"I've made up my mind that I reelly must have a little change, Mr Pecklebury," she sighed.

"Really?" said Mr Pecklebury, pausing in his task of clipping the hedge at his stepaunt's behest in case it should grow.

"Yes, reelly," said Miss de Wilkin, "and I think of going to Gondokkoro."

"God bless my soul!" said Mr Pecklebury, surprised, "where on earth's that?" "It's in Africa," said Miss de Wilkin.

"God bless my soul!" ejaculated the astonished Mr Peckle

"Well, I feel to want a little change, Mr Pecklebury. I reelly do," said Miss de Wilkin, sighing again. "Our little circle somehow seems so sadly altered without the dear Vioar, it reelly does. Mr and Mrs Snodkips and their ten children are all that could be desired in the way of a most respectable locum tenens, of course, till something is found out about the dear Vicar; but when will that be, you know? for they've discovered nothing yet, and our little circle is so sadly altered without him that I reelly feel to want a little change. So I think of going out to visit my second cousin once removed who lives in Gondokkoro collecting paperknives from elephants, and is the only relative I have in the world, and I've decided to go up to Cook's this morning by the 10.17 to ask about the ticket."

Mr Pecklebury, with an interested and thoughtful air, watched Miss de Wilkin walk out of her garden gate on her way to ask about a ticket to Gondokkoro, and pensively resumed his clipping. At twelve o'clock, much to his surprise, he beheld Miss de Wilkin walk in again. "What, back from town already!" he exclaimed.

"Well, I never got there, Mr Pecklebury," said Miss de Wilkin coyly.

"You never got there?" ejaculated Mr Pecklebury.

"No," said Miss de Wilkin, "I never did. It was a most extraordinary thing, and I'm

sure I don't know how it happened. I got out to change at the Junction; but you know they've been altering the platforms lately, and I wasn't quite sure where the London train started from, so I asked a porter, and he put me into a train which he said was the right one, and it was the return train to Puddispor, and here I am." "Well, upon my soul!" said Mr Pecklebury strongly.

"Yes," said Miss de Wilkin. "The truth is," said Mr Pecklebury, "that during that strike they let all sorts of strangers in, and the half of them don't know their business, and this kind of thing is the result. But never mind, Miss Wilkins-Miss de Wilkin, I mean I beg your pardon." "It's granted, I'm sure," said Miss de Wilkin, bowing and smiling.

"Never mind, Miss de Wilkin," resumed Mr Peoklebury. "I've got to go up to town myself to-morrow, and you can come with me, and I'll see that nobody puts you into a wrong train.'

"Well, do you know, Mr Peoklebury," said Miss de Wilkin ooyly, "I'm not quite sure that it was the wrong train; I'm really not."

"No?" said Mr Peoklebury, surprised.

"No," said Miss de Wilkin; "I somehow seem to feel different about it. When I got back to Puddispor again it did seem somehow to be such a delightful spot. Of course I've always known it to be that but it somehow all

seemed to come over me again in the train; and whoever do you think I met coming down, Mr Peoklebury? You'll never guess, you really won't."

"Who can it have been?" said Mr Peeklebury.

"It was a young priest, said Miss de Wilkin with bated breath, a curate. Such an interesting young man. Coming down to help Mr Snodkips till something is found out about the dear Vicar. And oh, Mr Pecklebury, what do you think?" said Miss de Wilkin, elasping herself—“ he's a celibate!'

It should perhaps be explained that Miss de Wilkin had humbly let it be known among her friends that, if there were no objection, her sense of the romantic would be greatly gratified were she to be designated ag Doris de Wilkin instead of Eliza Wilkins, which she felt to be a name to depress even the humblest aspirations, and which she fully and disarmingly admitted there was small prospect of her ever otherwise being able to change. Mr Pecklebury had immediately practised the desired alteration with such assiduity that his gratification of Miss de Wilkin's sense of the romantic now rarely knew a lapse; but Mrs Bath, while regretting the necessity of hurting Eliza Wilkins' feelings, had refused to pander.

Early next morning, equipped for town, Mr Pecklebury stood at his front door, ready for one of his occasional journeys up to London to consult his solicitors upon the business

affairs of himself and his step

aunt. "Good bye, Step- aunt Bath," said he. He had once made an endeavour to call his step-aunt Aunt Anastasia, but Mrs Bath had replied that she was not his aunt, and that she onsidered the use of the surname a mark of respect in the young. "Good-bye, Step aunt Bath," said Mr Peoklebury mildly.

"Good-bye, Henry," replied Mrs Bath majestically. "Trust securities, you will please to remember! and 88 few as possible even of those. The spirit of gambling that has developed since this war is one to which I refuse to pander."

Mr Pecklebury was so busy bearing this in mind with regard to certain recent investments which were returning so excellent a dividend that he was unable to help wondering rather guiltily whether his step-aunt might not consider them pandering, that he reached Clapham Junction and descended to change into the London train in a preoccupied state of mind. He was marching thus unobservantly towards the familiar platform when a voice said: 66 Sir, that is your way," and he looked up to see a porter standing before him with an outstretched arm, pointing to another platform. The porter was so tall a man that Mr Pecklebury had almost to gaze heavenwards before he could see his face.

"Oh, thanks," said Mr Pecklebury. He turned ab

stractedly, walked in the direction indicated, clambered into the train, and opened his paper. At that moment he heard a surprised voice saying outside, "But is this my train?" and another voice replying, "Yes, madam, this is certainly your train."

"By Jove!" ejaculated Mr Pecklebury, suddenly remembering, and he sprang to his feet and thrust his head through the window. "Is this the London train ?" he shouted to any one who would hear and answer him; and the guard, who happened to be passing, replied

"No, sir; of course it ain't. The London train goes from No. 4, and you've only three seconds to catch it in."

The

"God bless my soul!" said Mr Pecklebury, and he clutched his belongings and scrambled out. As he rushed down the platform, he was aware of some one running behind him. doors of the London train were slamming, but Mr Pecklebury wrenched one open and flung himself in, and a breathless lady sprang in after him.

"Well, upon my soul, that was a near thing!" he ejaculated as he sank panting on a seat and the train moved out.

"I am so thankful I happened to hear your question," gasped the lady. "I was just going off in the wrong train too. And yet the porter assured me it was the right one!"

"Really, you know," said Mr Pecklebury, "a complaint ought to be made about this.

It was 8 porter sent me wrong alse, and it's not the first time I've heard of it happening."

The other passengers in the carriage agreed that the railway services were becoming outrageous and the railway servants most inefficient, and that strong complaints must certainly be made; and then the carriage took up its daily papers again, and silence reigned, while Mr Peoklebury, contemplating the financial artioles of the 'Morning Post,' gradually returned to his pensive meditation the difficulty of reconciling dividends of 20 per cent with the lofty principles of his Stepaunt Bath.

on

By the time he reached Clapham Junction on his return journey at midday, a black fog had descended. The Junotion was submerged in an impenetrable gloom, through which large crowds of travellers groped with anxious faces like perturbed ghosts seeking a way out of hell. Mr Pecklebury, wondering anxiously the while whether it might not have been altered on account of the fog, pushed cautiously in the direction of the usual platform of the Puddispor train, and he was well on his way thither when a tall and stately figure loomed out of the darkness immediately in front of him, and a voice said: "Sir, you are going in the wrong direction."

Mr Peoklebury awoke to instant suspicion. He stood stook-still, tilted back his head, and carefully scrutinised

the countenance of the man before him,

"You're the porter who sent me wrong this morning!" he announced triumphantly. "I thought so! Now what on earth do you do this kind of thing for, my good fellow ! Why don't you learn your business better? I know my own way to my own platform quite well, thank you."

on

"And I know this business better than any man earth," said the porter.

"I don't believe you even know what train I'm wanting!" said Mr Pecklebury warmly.

"I know that you are looking for the Puddispor train,” said the porter.

"Yes, I am," said Mr Pecklebury firmly, "and, what's more, I'm going to it. You sent me wrong once, and I'm not going to let you do it again; and, God bless my soul! there's the whistle and I shall be left behind," and he clutched his bag and dodged the porter and rushed into the fog. For the second time that day he found himself pulling open a slammed door and plunging into a moving carriage.

"Sir, that's neither the way to Pire nor Peu d'Espoir!" called the porter, gazing with a half-smile after Mr Pecklebury's disappearing coat-tails; but Mr Pecklebury was triumphantly in, and an irate guard had reslammed the door,

and the train was off.

"Some bloke got away in the wrong train, mate?" said a passer-by who had half-caught the porter's words.