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"Has any one been aspersing your husband's character ?" said Mr. Lyon, with a slight initiative toward that relief of groaning for which he had reproved Lyddy.

"Sir, they daredn't. For though he was a man of prayer, he didn't want skill and knowledge to find out things for himself; and that was what I used to say to my friends when they wondered at my marrying a man from Lancashire, with no trade or fortune but what he'd got in his head. But my husband's tongue 'ud have been a fortune to any body, and there was many a one said it was as good as a dose of physic to hear him talk; not but what that got him into trouble in Lancashire, but he always said, if the worst came to the worst, he could go and preach to the blacks. But he did better than that, Mr. Lyon, for he married me; and this I will say, that for age, and conduct, and managing-"

"Mistress Holt," interrupted the minister, "these are not the things whereby we may edify one another. Let me beg of you to be as brief as you can. My time is not my own."

"Well, Mr. Lyon, I've a right to speak to my own character; and I'm one of your congregation, though I'm not a church-member, for I was born in the general Baptist connection; and as for being saved without works, there's a many, I dare say, can't do without that doctrine; but I thank the Lord I never needed to put myself on a level with the thief on the cross. I've done my duty, and more, if any body comes to that; for I've gone without my bit of meat to make broth for a sick neighbor; and if there's any of the church-members say they've done the same, I'd ask them if they had the sinking at the stomach as I have; for I've ever strove to do the right thing, and more, for good-natured I always was; and I little thought, after being respected by every body, I should come to be reproached by my own son. And my husband said, when he was a-dying 'Mary,' he said, 'the Elixir, and the Pills, and the Cure will support you, for they've a great name in all the

country round, and you'll pray for a blessing on them.' And so I have done, Mr. Lyon; and to say they're not good medicines, when they've been taken for fifty miles round by high and low, and rich and poor, and nobody speaking against 'em but Dr. Lukin, it seems to me it's a-flying in the face of Heaven; for if it was wrong to take the medicines, couldn't the blessed Lord have stopped it ?"

Mrs. Holt was not given to tears; she was much sustained by conscious unimpeachableness, and by an argumentative tendency which usually checks the too great activity of the lachrymal gland; nevertheless her eyes had become moist, her fingers played on her knee in an agitated manner, and she finally plucked a bit of her gown and held it with great nicety between her thumb and finger. Mr. Lyon, however, by listening attentively, had begun partly to divine the source of her trouble.

"Am I wrong in gathering from what you say, Mistress Holt, that your son has objected in some way to your sale of your late husband's medicines ?"

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"Mr. Lyon, he's masterful beyond every thing, and he talks more than his father did. I've got my reason, Mr. Lyon, and if any body talks sense I can follow him; but Felix talks so wild, and contradicts his mother. And what do you think he says, after giving up his 'prenticeship, and going off to study at Glasgow, and getting through all the bit of money his father saved for his bringing-up-what has all his learning come to? He says I'd better never open my Bible, for it's as bad poison to me as the pills are to half the people that swallow 'em. You'll not speak of this again, Mr. Lyon-I don't 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 didn'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 every body the medicines are good for nothing, how can I ever keep him and myself?"

"Tell him I shall feel favored if he will come and see me this evening," said Mr. Lyon, not without a little prejudice in favor 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 every thing that was bad, and I never will. And why this trouble should be sent upon me above every body

else-for I haven't told you all. He's made himself a journeyman to Mr. Prowd the watchmaker-after all this learning-and ing 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 mother's, that's all, Mr. Lyon; and all the more if they'd been well-spoken-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 every body 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 have gone through with those medicines-the pounding, and the pouring, and the letting stand, and the weighing-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 upward. 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 doesn'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 know well 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 Sarah, 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 honor 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
That makes a vice of virtue by excess.
2D CITIZEN. What if the coolness of our tardier veins
Be loss of virtue?

1ST CITIZEN.

All things cool with time--
The sun itself, they say, till heat shall find
A general level, nowhere in excess.

2D CITIZEN. 'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought,

That future middlingness.

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 his sitting-room, and was skimming rapidly, in his short-sighted way, by the light of one candle, the pages of a missionary report, emitting occasionally a slight "Hm-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 book-case, a map of the Holy Land, an engraved portrait of Dr. Doddridge, and a black bust. with a colored 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 earthen-ware

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