This depresses us so much that, until song and sherry have comforted and emboldened us, we have not spirits to make any effort toward the entertainment of our neighbors.

We have been paired with a couple of curates.

Mine is a strong-handed, ingenuous Ishmael, who tells everybody that he hates his trade, and that he thinks it is very hard that he may not get out of it, now that his elder brother is dead.

I am thankful to say that his appetite is as vast as his shoulders; so, after I have told him that I _love_ raw oysters, and that Barbara cannot sit in the room with a roast hare; and have heard in return that he does not care about brill, but worships John Dory, we slide into a gluttonous silence, and abide in it.

Barbara's man of God is in a wholly different pattern to mine.