Ten days ago, my father came up from Marshmallows to pay us a visit. He is
with us now, but we don't see much of him all day; for he is generally out
with a friend of his in the east end, the parson of one of the poorest
parishes in London,--who thanks God that he wasn't the nephew of any bishop
to be put into a good living, for he learns more about the ways of God from
having to do with plain, yes, vulgar human nature, than the thickness of
the varnish would ever have permitted him to discover in what are called
the higher orders of society. Yet I must say, that, amongst those I have
recognized as nearest, the sacred communism of the early church--a phrase
of my father's--are two or three people of rank and wealth, whose names are
written in heaven, and need not he set down in my poor story.

A few days ago, then, my father, coming home to dinner, brought with
him the publisher of the two books called, "The Annals of a Quiet
Neighborhood," and "The Seaboard Parish." The first of these had lain
by him for some years before my father could publish it; and then he
remodelled it a little for the magazine in which it came out, a portion
at a time. The second was written at the request of Mr. S., who wanted
something more of the same sort; and now, after some years, he had begun
again to represent to my father, at intervals, the necessity for another
story to complete the _trilogy_, as he called it: insisting, when my father
objected the difficulties of growing years and failing judgment, that
indeed he owed it to him; for he had left him in the lurch, as it were,
with an incomplete story, not to say an uncompleted series. My father still
objected, and Mr. S. still urged, until, at length, my father said--this
I learned afterwards, of course--"What would you say if I found you a
substitute?" "That depends on who the substitute might be, Mr. Walton,"
said Mr. S. The result of their talk was that my father brought him home
to dinner that day; and hence it comes, that, with some real fear and much