He looked a
little fluttered and anxious as he opened the manuscript. This
was the first occasion on which his ability as a narrator was to
be brought to the test, and I saw him glance nervously at
Jessie's attentive face.
"I need not trouble you with much in the way of preface," he
said. "This is the story of a very remarkable event in the life
of one of my brother clergymen. He and I became acquainted
through being associated with each other in the management of a
Missionary Society. I saw him for the last time in London when he
was about to leave his country and his friends forever, and was
then informed of the circumstances which have afforded the
material for this narrative."
BROTHER OWEN'S STORY
of
THE PARSON'S SCRUPLE.
CHAPTER I.
IF you had been in the far West of England about thirteen years
since, and if you had happened to take up one of the Cornish
newspapers on a certain day of the month, which need not be
specially mentioned, you would have seen this notice of a
marriage at the top of a column:
On the third instant, at the parish church, the Reverend Alfred
Carling, Rector of Penliddy, to Emily Harriet, relict of the late
Fergus Duncan, Esq., of Glendarn, N. B.
The rector's marriage did not produce a very favorable impression
in the town, solely in consequence of the unaccountable private
and unpretending manner in which the ceremony had been performed.
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