any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, but I am aware of much that should make me patient under a disesteem rest "Oh yes, your ringed and scented men of the people! I won't be one of them. Let a man once throttle himself with a satin stock and he'll get new wants and new motives. Met-ing even on too hasty a construction. I speak amorphosis will have begun at his neck-joint, and it will go on till it has changed his likings first and then his reasoning, which will follow his likings as the feet of a hungry dog follow his nose. I'll have none of your clerkly gentility. I might end by collecting greasy pence from poor men to buy myself a fine coat and a glutton's dinner, on pretense of serving the poor men. I'd sooner be Paley's fat pigeon than a demagogue all tongue and stomach, though"here Felix changed his voice a little-"I should like well enough to be another sort of dema gogue, if I could." "Then you have a strong interest in the great political movements of these times ?" said Mr. Lyon, with a perceptible flashing of the eyes. not as claiming reverence for my own age and ticularly toward those weak things of the world which have been chosen to confound the things which are mighty. The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth. The mind that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is-" Here the door opened, and Mr. Lyon paused to look round, but seeing only Lyddy with the tea-tray, he went on: "I should think so. I despise every man who has not—or, having it, doesn't try to rouse it in other men.' "Right, my young friend, right," said the min-after the flesh, are pride and scorn, more parister, in a deep, cordial tone. Inevitably his mind was drawn aside from the immediate consideration of Felix Holt's spiritual interest by the prospect of political sympathy. In those days so many instruments of God's cause in the fight for religious and political liberty held creeds that were painfully wrong, and, indeed, irreconcilable with salvation! "That is my own view, which I maintain in the face of some opposition from brethren who contend that a share in public movements is a hindrance to the closer walk, and that the pulpit is no place for teaching men their duties as members of the commonwealth. I have had much puerile blame cast upon me because I have uttered such names as Brougham and Wellington in the pulpit. Why not Wellington as well as Rabshakeh ? and why not Brougham as well as Balaam? Does God know less of men than He did in the days of Hezekiah and Moses?-is His arm shortened, and is the world become too wide for His providence! But, they say, there are no politics in the New Testament-" "Is, I may say, as a clenched fist that can give blows, but is shut up from receiving and holding aught that is precious-though it were heaven-sent manna.' "I understand you, Sir," said Felix, goodhumoredly, putting out his hand to the little man, who had come close to him as he delivered the last sentence with sudden emphasis and slowness. "But I'm not inclined to clench my fist at you." 'Well, well," said Mr. Lyon, shaking the proffered hand, "we shall see more of each other, and I trust shall have much profitable communing. You will stay and have a dish "Well, they're right enough there," said Fe-of tea with us: we take the meal late on Thurslix, with his usual unceremoniousness. "What! you are of those who hold that a Christian minister should not meddle with public matters in the pulpit ?" said Mr. Lyon, coloring. "I am ready to join issue on that point." "Not I, Sir," said Felix; "I should say, teach any truth you can, whether it's in the Testament or out of it. It's little enough any body can get hold of, and still less what he can drive into the skulls of a pence-counting, parcel-tying generation, such as mostly fill your chapels." days, because my daughter is detained by giving a lesson in the French tongue. But she is doubtless returned now, and will presently come and pour out tea for us." "Thank you; I'll stay," said Felix, not from any curiosity to see the minister's daughter, but from a liking for the society of the minister himself—for his quaint looks and ways, and the transparency of his talk, which gave a charm even to his weaknesses. The daughter was probably some prim Miss, neat, sensible, pious, "Young man," said Mr. Lyon, pausing in but all in a small, feminine way, in which Felix front of Felix. He spoke rapidly, as he always was no more interested than in Dorcas meetdid except when his words were specially weight-ings, biographies of devout women, and that ed with emotion: he overflowed with matter, amount of ornamental knitting which was not and in his mind matter was always completely inconsistent with Non-conforming seriousness. organized into words. "I speak not on my "I'm perhaps a little too fond of banging and own behalf, for not only have I no desire that smashing," he went on; "a phrenologist at Glasgow told me I had large veneration; another man there, who knew me, laughed out and said I was the most blasphemous iconoclast living. "That,' says my phrenologist, 'is because of his large Ideality, which prevents him from finding any thing perfect enough to be venerated.' Of course I put my ears down and wagged my tail at that stroking." "Yes, yes; I have had my own head explored with somewhat similar results. It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, 'Know thyself,' and too often leads to a self-estimate which will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of the tree is made evident. Nevertheless- Esther, my dear, this is Mr. Holt, whose acquaintance I have even now been making with more than ordinary interest. He will take tea with us." Esther bowed slightly as she walked across the room to fetch the candle and place it near her tray. Felix rose and bowed, also with an air of indifference, which was perhaps exaggerated by the fact that he was inwardly surprised. The minister's daughter was not the sort of person he expected. She was quite incongruous with his notion of ministers' daughters in general; and though he had expected something nowise delightful, the incongruity repelled him. A very delicate scent, the faint suggestion of a garden, was wafted as she went. He would not observe her, but he had a sense of an elastic walk, the tread of small feet, a long neck, and a high crown of shining brown plaits with curls that floated backward-things, in short, that suggested a fime lady to him, and determined him to notice her as little as possible. A fine lady was always a sort of spun-glass affair-not natural, and with no beauty for him as art; but a fine lady as the daughter of this rusty old Puritan was especially offensive. "Nevertheless,” continued Mr. Lyon, who rarely let drop any thread of discourse, "that phrenological science is not irreconcilable with the revealed dispensations. And it is undeniable that we have our varying native dispositions which even grace will not obliterate. I myself, from my youth up, have been given to question too curiously concerning the truth-to examine and sift the medicine of the soul rather than to apply it." "If your truth happens to be such medicine as Holt's Pills and Elixir, the less you swallow of it the better," said Felix. "But truth-vendors and medicine-vendors usually recommend swallowing. When a man sees his livelihood in a pill or a proposition, he likes to have orders for the dose, and not curious inquiries." This speech verged on rudeness, but it was delivered with a brusque openness that implied the absence of any personal intention. The minister's daughter was now for the first time startled into looking at Felix. But her survey of this unusual speaker was soon made, and she relieved her father from the need to reply by saying: "The tea is poured out, father." That was the signal for Mr. Lyon to advance toward the table, raise his right hand, and ask a blessing at sufficient length for Esther to glance at the visitor again. There seemed to be no danger of his looking at her: he was observing her father. She had time to remark that he was a peculiar-looking person, but not insignificant, which was the quality that most hopelessly consigned a man to perdition. He was massively built. The striking points in his face were large, clear gray eyes and full lips. "Will you draw up to the table, Mr. Holt ?" said the minister. In the act of rising, Felix pushed back his chair too suddenly against the rickety table close by him, and down went the blue-frilled workbasket, flying open, and dispersing on the floor reels, thimble, muslin-work, a small sealed bottle of atta of rose, and something heavier than these-a duodecimo volume, which fell close to him between the table and the fender. "Oh, my stars!" said Felix, "I beg your pardon." Esther had already started up, and with wonderful quickness had picked up half the small rolling things while Felix was lifting the basket and the book. This last had opened, and had its leaves crushed in falling; and, with the instinct of a bookish man, he saw nothing more pressing to be done than to flatten the corners of the leaves. "Byron's Poems!" he said, in a tone of disgust, while Esther was recovering all the other articles. "The Dream'-he'd better have been asleep and snoring. What! do you stuff your memory with Byron, Miss Lyon ?" Felix, on his side, was led at last to look straight at Esther, but it was with a strong denunciatory and pedagogic intention. Of course he saw more clearly than ever that she was a fine lady. She reddened, drew up her long neck, and . said, as she retreated to her chair again : "I have a great admiration for Byron.” Mr. Lyon had paused in the act of drawing his chair to the tea-table, and was looking on at this scene, wrinkling the corners of his eyes with a perplexed smile. Esther would not have wished him to know any thing about the volume of Byron, but she was too proud to show any con cern. "He is a worldly and vain writer, I fear," said Mr. Lyon. He knew scarcely any thing of the poet, whose books embodied the faith and ritual of many young ladies and gentlemen. "A misanthropic debauchee," said Felix, lifting a chair with one hand and holding the book open in the other, "whose notion of a hero was that he should disorder his stomach and despise mankind. His corsairs and renegades, his Alps and Manfreds, are the most paltry puppets that were ever pulled by the strings of lust and pride." "Hand the book to me," said Mr. Lyon. "Let me beg of you to put it aside till after tea, father," said Esther. "However objectionable Mr. Holt may find its pages, they would certainly be made worse by being greased with ants to the poll as if they were sheep. And it dread-and-butter." has even been hinted that the heir who is com“That is true, my dear,” said Mr. Lyon, lay-ing from the East may be another Tory candi ""Tis strange," said Mr. Lyon. "Something extraordinary must have happened,” said Esther, "for Mr. Jermyn to intend courting us. Miss Jermyn said to me only the other day that she could not think how I came to be so well educated and ladylike. She al "I should not attempt it with you, Mr. Holt," said Esther. "You have such strong words at command that they make the smallest argument seem formidable. If I had ever met the giant Cormoran I should have made a point of agree-ways thought Dissenters were ignorant, vulgar ing with him in his literary opinions." Esther had that excellent thing in woman, a soft voice, with a clear, fluent utterance. Her sauciness was always charming, because it was without emphasis, and was accompanied with graceful little turns of the head. people. I said, so they were; usually, and Church people also in small towns. She considers herself a judge of what is ladylike, and she is vulgarity personified—with large feet, and the most odious scent on her handkerchief, and a bonnet that looks like 'The Fashion' printed in capital Felix laughed at her thrust with young heart- letters." iness. 66 My daughter is a critic of words, Mr. Holt," said the minister, smiling complacently, "and often corrects mine on the ground of niceties, which I profess are as dark to me as if they were the reports of a sixth sense which I possess not. I am an eager seeker for precision, and would fain find language subtle enough to follow the utmost intricacies of the soul's pathways, but I see not why a round word that means some object made and blessed by the Creator should be branded and banished as a malefactor." "One sort of fine-ladyism is as good as another," said Felix. "No, indeed. Pardon me," said Esther. "A real fine lady does not wear clothes that flare in people's eyes, or use importunate scents, or make a noise as she moves: she is something refined, and graceful, and charming, and never obtrusive." "Oh yes," said Felix, contemptuously. "And she reads Byron also, and admires Childe Harold-gentlemen of unspeakable woes, who employ a hair-dresser, and look seriously at themselves in the glass." Esther reddened, and gave a little toss. Felix went on triumphantly. "A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs and small notions, about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest. Ask your father what those old persecuted emigrant Puritans would have done with fine-lady wives and daughters.” "Oh, your niceties-I know what they are," said Felix, in his usual fortissimo. "They all go on your system of make-believe. 'Rottenness' may suggest what is unpleasant, so you'd better say 'sugar-plums,' or something else such a long way off the fact that nobody is obliged to think of it. Those are your roundabout euphuisms that dress up swindling till it looks as well as honesty, and shoot with boiled pease instead of bullets. I hate your gentlemanly speakers." "Oh, there is no danger of such misallian-"Then you would not like Mr. Jermyn, I ces," said Esther. "Men who are unpleasant think," said Esther. "That reminds me, fa- companions and make frights of themselves are ther, that to-day, when I was giving Miss Lou-sure to get wives tasteless enough to suit them." isa Jermyn her lesson, Mr. Jermyn came in and spoke to me with grand politeness, and asked me at what times you were likely to be disengaged, because he wished to make your better acquaintance, and consult you on matters of importance. He never took the least notice of me before. Can you guess the reason of his sudden ceremoniousness?" "Nay, child," said the minister, ponderingly. "Politics, of course," said Felix. "He's on some committee. An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. Eh, Mr. Lyon? Isn't that it ?" "Esther, my dear," said Mr. Lyon, "let not your playfulness betray you into disrespect to-ward those venerable pilgrims. They struggled and endured in order to cherish and plant anew the seeds of scriptural doctrine and of a pure discipline." "Yes, I know," said Esther, hastily, dreading a discourse on the pilgrim fathers. "Oh, they were an ugly lot!" Felix burst in, making Mr. Lyon start. "Miss Medora wouldn't have minded if they had all been put into the pillory and lost their ears. She would have said, 'Their ears did stick out so.' I shouldn't wonder if that's a bust of one of them." Here. Nay, not so. He is the close ally of the Felix, with sudden keenness of observation, nodTransome family, who are blind hereditary To-ded at the black bust with the gauze over its colries like the Debarrys, and will drive their ten- ored face. C "No," said Mr. Lyon; "that is the eminent | to turn aside from the track which leads to the George Whitfield, who, you well know, had a tried and established fountains, so the Evil One gift of oratory as of one on whom the tongue of flame had rested visibly. But Providencedoubtless for wise ends in relation to the inner man, for I would not inquire too closely into minutia which carry too many plausible interpretations for any one of them to be stable-Providence, I say, ordained that the good man should squint; and my daughter has not yet learned to bear with this infirmity.' "So she has put a veil over it. Suppose you had squinted yourself?" said Felix, looking at Esther. "Then, doubtless, you could have been more polite to me, Mr. Holt," said Esther, rising and placing herself at her work-table. "You seem to prefer what is unusual and ugly." "A peacock!" thought Felix. "I should like to come and scold her every day, and make her cry and cut her fine hair off." Felix rose to go, and said, "I will not take up more of your valuable time, Mr. Lyon. I know that you have not many spare evenings." "That is true, my young friend; for I now go to Sproxton one evening in the week. I do not despair that we may some day need a chapel there, though the hearers do not multiply save among the women, and there is no work as yet begun among the miners themselves. I shall be glad of your company in my walk thither tomorrow at five o'clock, if you would like to see how that population has grown of late years." "Oh, I've been to Sproxton already several times. I had a congregation of my own there last Sunday evening." will take advantage of a natural yearning toward the better, to delude the soul with a selfflattering belief in a visionary virtue higher than the ordinary fruits of the Spirit. But I trust it is not so here. I feel a great enlargement in this young man's presence, notwithstanding a certain license in his language, which I shall use my efforts to correct." "I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of temper in her voice. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is his occupation ?" "Watch and clock making, by which, together with a little teaching, as I understand, he hopes to maintain his mother, not thinking it right that she should live by the sale of medicines whose virtues he distrusts. It is no common scruple." "Dear me," said Esther, "I thought he was something higher than that." She was disappointed. Felix, on his side, as he strolled out in the evening air, said to himself: "Now by what fine meshes of circumstance did that queer devout old man, with his awful creed, which makes this world a vestibule with double doors to hell, and a narrow stair on one side whereby the thinner sort may mount to heaven-by what subtle play of flesh and spirit did he come to have a daughter so little in his own likeness? Married foolishly, I suppose. I'll never marry, though I should have to live on raw turnips to subdue my flesh. I'll never look back and say, 'I had a fine purpose once-I meant to keep my hands "What! do you preach ?" said Mr. Lyon, clean, and my soul upright, and to look truth with a brightened glance. "Not exactly. I went to the ale-house." Mr. Lyon started. "I trust you are putting a riddle to me, young man, even as Samson did to his companions. From what you said but lately, it can not be that you are given to tippling and to taverns." "Oh, I don't drink much. I order a pint of beer, and I get into talk with the fellows over their pots and pipes. Somebody must take a little knowledge and common-sense to them in this way, else how are they to get it? I go for educating the non-electors, so I put myself in the way of my pupils-my academy is the beerhouse. I'll walk with you to-morrow with great pleasure." "Do so, do so," said Mr. Lyon, shaking hands with his odd acquaintance. "We shall understand each other better by-and-by, I doubt not." "I wish you good-evening, Miss Lyon." Esther bowed very slightly, without speaking. "That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, walking about after Felix was gone. "I discern in him a love for whatsoever things are honest and true, which I would fain believe to be an earnest of further endowment with the wisdom that is from on high. It is true that, as the traveler in the desert is often lured, by a false vision of water and freshness, in the face; but pray excuse me, I have a wife and children-I must lie and simper a little, else they'll starve;' or, my wife is nice, she must have her bread well buttered, and her feelings will be hurt if she is not thought genteel.' That is the lot Miss Esther is preparing for some man or other. I could grind my teeth at such self-satisfied minxes, who think they can tell every body what is the correct thing, and the utmost stretch of their ideas will not place them on a level with the intelligent fleas. I should like to see if she could be made ashamed of herself." CHAPTER VI. "Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives, And feed my mind, that dies for want of her." MARLOWE: Tamburlaine the Great. HARDLY any one in Treby who thought at all of Mr. Lyon and his daughter had not felt the same sort of wonder about Esther as Felix felt. She was not much liked by her father's church and congregation. The less serious observed that she had too many airs and graces, and held her head much too high; the stricter sort feared greatly that Mr. Lyon had not been sufficiently careful in placing his daughter among God-fear. ing people, and that, being led astray by the melancholy vanity of giving her exceptional ac- own mind was not free from a sense of irrecon- |