The Daily Phoenix

Trials of a Country Clergyman.—A young person thus feelingly describes his bachelor experience in the first village in which he settled after entering the ministry: Old ladies gave me tracts, and tormented me in every possible way. One gave me cough lozenges because a fly got down my throat in church; another sent me her late husband's goloshes to wear when I went out on wet evenings. (The late husband's feet were about five inches long.) A third sent a wonderful kind of India-rubber bag, which she said could be applied wherever a chill was felt. Not till my sister came to stay with me did I know that hot water ought to be put into the creature before using it; I had thought it a sort of mat to lay over my feet, and very useless of its kind.

Miss Thompson was the most disagreeable of the old maids. She actually one day ran her fingers underneath my collar to see if I wore flannel. During the year I was at Littleback I had thirteen pairs of slippers, twenty-five sermon cases and three smoking caps worked for me. One young lady embroidered my initials on a handkerchief in slimy-looking black thread. My sister says it was done in hair; and perhaps that accounts for Miss Rudge being so offended when I said I thought Lester's red marking cotton as good as any other. Three young ladies declared that I had trifled with their affections; two, on the contrary, affirmed that they had rejected me; while the village school-mistress assured the rector that I had tried to press her hand. I certainly never had such hard work as while at Littlebuck. I had played at least 300 games of croquet, went to an archery meeting every week, and at any spare moment I was liable to be sent for by Miss Anna Phelps to practice an Italian duet. I bore my trials with Christian fortitude, till one morning the rector sent for me and said that my conduct disgraced my profession. I took the hint, and at the end of one year and three months my career at Littleback was over. The young ladies cried when I went; they said I was "such a darling."

Now, I ask my impartial reader whether it was not hard that I should be blamed for the ladies of Littleback? My life is blighted, and all that is left to me is thirteen pairs of slippers, twenty-five sermon cases, three smoking caps, one handkerchief marked "T. G.," and a bad character from my late employer.