think ill enough of you to believe that. For I suppose a Christian can understand the word o' God without going to Glasgow, and there's texts upon texts about ointment and medicine, and there's one as might have been made for a receipt of my husband's, it's just as if it was a riddle, and Holt's Elixir was the answer." "Your son uses rash words, Mistress Holt," said the minister, "but it is quite true that we may err in giving a too private interpretation to the Scripture. The word of God has to satisfy the larger needs of his people, like the rain and the sunshine, - which no man must think to be meant for his own patch of seed-ground solely. Will it not be well that I should see your son, and talk with him on these matters? He was at chapel, I observed, and I suppose I am to be his pastor." "That was what I wanted to ask you, Mr. Lyon. For perhaps he'll listen to you, and not talk you down as he does his poor mother. For after we'd been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of most; he said you was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan, he uses dreadful language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he did n't mean you ill, for all that. He calls most folks' religion rottenness; and yet another time he 'll tell me I ought to feel myself a sinner, and do God's will and not my own. But it's my belief he says first one thing and then another only to abuse his mother. Or else he's going off his head, and must be sent to a 'sylum. But if he writes to the North Loamshire Herald' first, to tell everybody the medicines are good for nothing, how can I ever keep him and myself?" "Tell him I shall feel favoured if he will come and see me this evening," said Mr. Lyon, not with out a little prejudice in favour of the young man, whose language about the preacher in Malthouse Yard did not seem to him to be altogether dreadful. 'Meanwhile, my friend, I counsel you to send up a supplication, which I shall not fail to offer also, that you may receive a spirit of humility and submission, so that you may not be hindered from seeing and following the Divine guidance in this matter by any false lights of pride and obstinacy. Of this more when I have spoken with your son." "I'm not proud or obstinate, Mr. Lyon. I never did say I was everything that was bad, and I never will. And why this trouble should be sent on me above everybody else, for I have n't told you all. He's made himself a journeyman to Mr. Prowd the watchmaker, after all this learning, and he says he'll go with patches on his knees, and he shall like himself the better. And as for his having little boys to teach, they'll come in all weathers with dirty shoes. If it's madness, Mr. Lyon, it's no use your talking to him." We shall see. Perhaps it may even be the disguised working of grace within him. We must not judge rashly. Many eminent servants of God have been led by ways as strange." "Then I'm sorry for their mothers, that's all, Mr. Lyon; and all the more if they'd been wellspoken-on women. For not my biggest enemy, whether it's he or she, if they 'll speak the truth, can turn round and say I've deserved this trouble. And when everybody gets their due, and people's doings are spoke of on the house-tops, as the Bible says they will be, it'll be known what I've gone through with those medicines, the pounding and the pouring, and the letting stand, and the weigh ing, up early and down late, there's nobody knows yet but One that's worthy to know; and the pasting o' the printed labels right side upwards. There's few women would have gone through with it; and it's reasonable to think it'll be made up to me; for if there's promised and purchased blessings, I should think this trouble is purchasing 'em. For if my son Felix does n't have a strait-waistcoat put on him, he'll have his way. But I say no more. I wish you good-morning, Mr. Lyon, and thank you, though I well know it's your duty to act as you're doing. And I never troubled you about my own soul, as some do who look down on me for not being a church member." "Farewell, Mistress Holt, farewell. I pray that a more powerful teacher than I am may instruct you." The door was closed, and the much-tried Rufus walked about again, saying aloud, groaningly, "This woman has sat under the Gospel all her life, and she is as blind as a heathen, and as proud and stiff-necked as a Pharisee; yet she is one of the souls I watch for. 'Tis true that even Sara, the chosen mother of God's people, showed a spirit of unbelief, and perhaps of selfish anger; and it is a passage that bears the unmistakable signet, 'doing honour to the wife or woman, as unto the weaker vessel.' For therein is the greatest check put on the ready scorn of the natural man." CHAPTER V. 1ST CITIZEN. Sir, there's a hurry in the veins of youth, 2D CITIZEN. 1ST CITIZEN. 2D CITIZEN. All things cool with time, - IN the evening, when Mr. Lyon was expecting the knock at the door that would announce Felix Holt, he occupied his cushionless arm-chair in the sittingroom, and was skimming rapidly, in his shortsighted way, by the light of one candle, the pages of a missionary report, emitting occasionally a slight "H'm-m," that appeared to be expressive of criticism rather than of approbation. The room was dismally furnished, the only objects indicating an intention of ornament being a bookcase, a map of the Holy Land, an engraved portrait of Dr. Doddridge, and a black bust with a coloured face, which for some reason or other was covered with green gauze. Yet any one whose attention was quite awake must have been aware, even on entering, of certain things that were incongruous with the general air of sombreness and privation. There was a delicate scent of dried rose-leaves; the light by which the minister was reading was a wax-candle in a white earthenware candlestick, and the table VOL. I. -6 on the opposite side of the fireplace held a dainty work-basket frilled with blue satin. Felix Holt, when he entered, was not in an observant mood; and when, after seating himself, at the minister's invitation, near the little table which held the work-basket, he stared at the wax-candle opposite to him, he did so without any wonder or consciousness that the candle was not of tallow. But the minister's sensitiveness gave another interpretation to the gaze which he divined rather than saw; and in alarm lest this inconsistent extravagance should obstruct his usefulness, he hastened to say, "You are doubtless amazed to see me with a wax-light, my young friend; but this undue luxury is paid for with the earnings of my daughter, who is so delicately framed that the smell of tallow is loathsome to her." "I heeded not the candle, sir. I thank Heaven I am not a mouse to have a nose that takes note of wax or tallow." The loud, abrupt tones made the old man vibrate a little. He had been stroking his chin gently before, with a sense that he must be very quiet and deliberate in his treatment of the eccentric young man; but now, quite unreflectingly, he drew forth a pair of spectacles, which he was in the habit of using when he wanted to observe his interlocutor more closely than usual. "And I myself, in fact, am equally indifferent," he said, as he opened and adjusted his glasses, "so that I have a sufficient light on my book." Here his large eyes looked discerningly through the spectacles. ""Tis the quality of the page you care about, |