purposes, and capacity than mine, and with almost no promise of
anything to come of them.

Something of this kind I preached one Sunday, more as a relief to
myself than for any other reason. Mardon was there, and with him a
girl whom I had not seen before. My sight is rather short, and I could
not very well tell what she was like. After the service was over he
waited for me, and said he had done so to ask me if I would pay him a
visit on Monday evening. I promised to do so, and accordingly went.

I found him living in a small brick-built cottage near the outskirts of
the town, the rental of which I should suppose would be about seven or
eight pounds a year. There was a patch of ground in front and a little
garden behind--a kind of narrow strip about fifty feet long, separated
from the other little strips by iron hurdles. Mardon had tried to keep
his garden in order, and had succeeded, but his neighbour was
disorderly, and had allowed weeds to grow, blacking bottles and old tin
cans to accumulate, so that whatever pleasure Mardon's labours might
have afforded was somewhat spoiled.

He himself came to the door when I knocked, and I was shown into a kind
of sitting-room with a round table in the middle and furnished with
Windsor chairs, two arm-chairs of the same kind standing on either side
the fireplace. Against the window was a smaller table with a green
baize tablecloth, and about half-a-dozen plants stood on the window-
sill, serving as a screen. In the recess on one side of the fireplace
was a cupboard, upon the top of which stood a tea-caddy, a workbox,
some tumblers, and a decanter full of water; the other side being
filled with a bookcase and books. There were two or three pictures on
the walls; one was a portrait of Voltaire, another of Lord Bacon, and a