May the choicest of husbands, the best of his kind,
Be hers by the appointment of Heaven!
And may sweet smiling infants as pledges of love
To crown her connubium be given."
The following is a characteristic note of this worthy clerk, which
differs somewhat from the notices usually sent to vicars as reminders of
approaching weddings:
"REV. SIR,
"I hope it has not escaped your memory that the young couple at Clack
are hoping to offer incense at the shrine of Venus this morning at the
hour of ten. I anticipate the bridegrooms's anxiety.
"RUSTICUS SACRISTA."
He was somewhat curious on the subject of fashionable ladies' dresses,
and once asked the rector "in what guise feminine respectability usually
appeared at an evening party?" When a low dress was described to him, he
blushed and shivered and exclaimed, "Then methinks, sir, there must be
revelations of much which modesty would gladly veil." He was terribly
overcome on one occasion when he met in the rector's drawing-room one
evening some ladies who were attired, as any other gentlewomen would be,
in low gowns.
William Hinton was, in spite of his air of importance and his inflated
phraseology, a simple, single-minded, humble soul. When the rector
visited him on his death-bed, he greeted Mr. Young with as much serenity
of manner as if he had been only going on a journey to a far country for
which he had long been preparing.
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