'Tis a wonder, indeed, he didn't want to buy hay for the pig!" But she went out pleased, nevertheless, and spread a bed of yellow straw in readiness for her expected "company." "I wonder who is wanting to sell a pig now," she soliloquised.

"I daresay Mishteer saw an old 'bare bones' passing that nobody else would buy, and is going to take pity on him." "Poor old Ebben Owens.

'Twill be hard for him to-day," thought the vicar, as he made his way to the pig market, and in another moment he was gladdening the heart of the lonely old man by his kindly greeting.
"Well, well, Mr.Price, sir! Is it you indeed so early in the market ?" "Yes, I have come to buy a pig," said the vicar, holding out his hand.
Embarrassment and shame suffused Ebben Owens's face with a burning glow, and he hesitated to place his own hand in the vicar's.
"Have you heard about me, sir ?" he asked, "I have heard everything," answered the vicar, grasping the timid hand and pressing it warmly.
"And yet you shake hands with me, sir?
Well, indeed." "Yes, with more respect than I have ever done before.

Not condoning your sin, remember that, Ebben Owens; but honouring you for having the courage to confess it.

That is sufficient proof of your repentance." There were tears in the old man's eyes as he tried to answer; but Mr.
Price, seeing his emotion, hastened to change the subject.
"Now let us see the pigs," he said, holding out his snuff box, from which Ebben Owens helped himself with more cheerfulness than he had felt since the meeting at which he had made his confession.
They bent over the pen in conclave, during which the vicar exhibited such lamentable ignorance of the points of a pig that, had it not been for his previous kindness, he would have fallen considerably in the old farmer's estimation.
"This is the fattest," he said, prodding one with his stick, and trying to look like a connoisseur.
"Oh! he's too fat for you, sir; this is the one that would look well on your table." "Poor thing," said the vicar, a shadow falling on his face, as he realised that there would come a morning when the air would be rent with shrieks, and he would wish himself in the next parish.