IN Dulwich, the summer passed sleepily. Day after day the checkered shade fell upon the purplish gray gravel of the broad middle path, that stretched a mile beneath the maples, from one end of the town to the other. The chimes on the tower of the church, after ringing softly at all the quarters, played four measures of a quaint minuet, to speed the crawling hours, and the giant oaks on the college green threw shadows, as blue as the sea, between the great Doric pillars of the portico in front of the chapel, where, for more than a hundred years, in stately dignity, the old college had held its sober commencements. In the cool of the afternoons the wives and daughters of the professors strolled forth, in their delicate muslins, or thin grenadines, to make a few languid visits; and in the evenings they sat out of doors on the wide moonlit verandas, gently fanning away the industrious gnats, and idly talking with the few young men who remained when the college term was over; and the drone of the locusts in the oak trees gathered animation by contrast.
     The faculty people seldom went away in the long vacation. They said that the beauty of Dulwich was too unique to forego, and this was so dignified a way of putting it that it sometimes carried conviction; besides, the Bishop, who was unconstrained by any other consideration than pure love of the place, came every year with his wife, and remained from June to October. In their house, just outside the village, the “Bishops”—Dulwich always spoke of them in the plural—entertained the parish in impartial, if unflattering, routine. None was omitted, and was any man at odds with his neighbor that neighbor he was sure to meet, in the interests of peace, perhaps; or, may it have been, that the good Bishop hoped that something might happen to vary the monotony? It was a forlorn hope; the unenterprising enemies tamely made friends, and the Bishop never failed to look gratified when they thanked him, effusively, later on. He was a person of admirable self-control.
     But to every man comes his golden opportunity.
     Once, long ago, in the broiling heat of an August morning, a weary, draggled procession climbed slowly up the steep hill, upon the top of which stood the Episcopal Palace. They had come from Littleton, the next town, in the old yellow coach that made the journey between the two places twice a day — a man, two young women, and a boy. As they neared the house the man drew out a ragged pocket-handkerchief, and began to flick the dust from his seedy coat and baggy trousers.
     “If I was you I’d set that stove-pipe straight,” said one of the women, but the rebellious silk hat had become so accustomed to a rakish cant to one side that it successfully defied all his nervous efforts at reform.
     “What has the Bishop got P. X. on that flag for?” said the other woman, as they turned the corner of the house and came in sight of a great white flag, with red lettering, that was flapping lazily on a tall pole.
     “It’s X. P.,” said the other; “perhaps they want the express to stop.”
     “Oh, shut up!” said the man, irritably. “Don’t you see that there is someone listening behind that door? Where’s the boy? Hurry up there!” But the boy, toiling sulkily behind, continued to plod, grumbling, as he came, at the weight of a large box, which he carried by a leathern handle.
     When they arrived at the front door, Brown, the Bishop’s man, interviewed them suspiciously from behind the close wire netting of the screen. The day was humid, as well as warm, and Brown felt unpropitious. He went and informed his master that a parcel of beggars were out there, and, while he wasn’t one to give his opinion unasked, he thought they’d better be sent packing. It was this modesty of Brown’s that finally lost him his place. But the Bishop, who knew that it was humid, even better than Brown, gave him to understand that he had exceeded his office.
     “Show them in,” he said, his thoughts vaguely scriptural; “and call no man beggar nor unclean.”
     “Although I might have, I never said nothink about dirt, sir,” said Brown, firmly, though respectfully.
     The Bishop waved him off imperiously, and the company were reluctantly admitted; the young man advanced, and, seizing the Bishop’s hand, shook it with a high vertical motion that took the good prelate completely by surprise.
     “We have come,” he said, “to give you an example of our famous Sacred and Secular Exhibition of bell-ringing. There isn’t any taste for music in Littleton; to try having a performance like ours there, would be throwing pearls before—you know who”—he winked, confidentially; “it’s in the Bible—great book, that! And so we thought that if we could find a hall in Dulwich—”
     “My good friend,” began the Bishop, “I think that you must have mistaken—”
     “Oh, that’s all right!” said the visitor, encouragingly. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Mrs. Euphemia de la .Mar, and her sister, Miss Heloise—de la Roche-Jacqueline.” He used the latter name after a frightened glance about him; and, by a strange coincidence, there was a large red volume of memoirs bearing that name on the title just beyond the Bishop’s head!
     “A famous and beautiful patronymic,” said the Bishop.
     “Alas, to what base uses fallen!” said the other, turning down the corners of his wide comedian’s mouth. “But to business, to business!” And, before the Bishop could remonstrate, he had whipped open the cover of the box, and aided by the boy, had set out on the study-table a long row of bells. Big bells, little bells, fat bells, thin bells, found their places as by magic, and, standing in front of them with the two women, Mr. de la Mar proceeded to tinkle, in the face of the embarrassed old gentleman, that good and familiar tune which we sing to the words:

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