God
help him over whose dead soul in his living body must be uttered the sad
supplication, _Requiescat in pace_!
* * * * *
A knock at the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's study-door called his eyes
from the book on which they were intent. He looked up, as if expecting a
welcome guest.
The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D.D., entered the study of the
Reverend Chauncy Fairweather. He was not the expected guest. Mr.
Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into a half-open drawer,
and pushed in the drawer. He slid something which rattled under a paper
lying on the table. He rose with a slight change of color, and welcomed,
a little awkwardly, his unusual visitor.
"Good evening, Brother Fairweather!" said the Reverend Doctor, in a
very cordial, good-humored way. "I hope I am not spoiling one of those
eloquent sermons I never have a chance to hear."
"Not at all, not at all," the younger clergyman answered, in a languid
tone, with a kind of habitual half-querulousness which belonged to
it,--the vocal expression which we meet with now and then, and which
says as plainly as so many words could say it, "I am a suffering
individual. I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and imposed upon by
mankind and the powers of the universe generally. But I endure all. I
endure _you_. Speak. I listen. It is a burden to me, but I even approve.
I sacrifice myself. Behold this movement of my lips! It is a smile.
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