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as a refrain: “O Lord, be thou my helper!” Not within living memory till to-day had the subject of the sermon formed the topic of conversation from the church door to churoh-yard gate, to the exclusion of personal remarks on those who had been present, and on the week's news in general.

The thrilling periods of the preacher bung about their minds all that day. The parish being steeped in indifferentiem, it happened that when the youths and maidens, middle-aged and old people, whe had attended church that morning, recurred as by a fascination to what Halborough had said, they did so more or less indirectly, and even with the subterfuge of a light laugh that was not real, so great was their shyness under the novelty of their sensations.

What was more curious than that these unconventional villagers should have been excited by a preacher of a new school after forty years of familiarity with the old hand who had had charge of their soula, was the effect of Halborough’s addresa upon the occupants of the manor-house pew, including the owner of the estate. These thought they knew how to discount the mere sensational sermon, how to minimize flash oratory to ita bare proportions; but they had yielded like the rest of the assembly to the charm of the newcomer,

Mr. Fellmer, the land-owncer, was a young widower whose mother, still in the prime of life, had returned to her old position in the family mansion since the death of her son’s wife in the year after her marriage, at the birth of a fragile little girl. From the date of his loss to the present time, Fellmer lad led an inactive existence in the seclusion of the parish ; a lack of motive scemed to leave him listless. He had gladly reinstated bia mother in the gloomy house, and his main occupation aow lay in stewarding his estate,