Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Then he leaned a little forward on the cushion; and, after a pause, began his sermon, which lay before him, and worked out the text.

It was an admirable discourse, clear and practical; but you will not care to have it recapitulated for you, as it was recapitulated in the local newspapers. Remembering what the bringing up of the Halliburtons had been, it was impossible that Gar's sermons should not be practical; and the congregation began to think they had been mistaken in their estimate of what a young man could do. He told the judges where their duty lay, as fearlessly as he told it to the college boys, as he told it to all. He told them that the golden secret of success and happiness in this life, lay in the faithful and earnest performance of the duties that crowded on their path, striving on unweariedly, whatsoever those duties might be, whether pleasant or painful; joined to implicit reliance on, and trust in God. A plainer sermon was never preached. In manner he was remarkably calm and impressive, and the tone of his voice was quiet and persuasive, just as if he were speaking to them. He was listened to with breathless interest throughout; even those gentry, the college boys, were for once beguiled into attending to a sermon. Jane's tears fell incessantly, and she had to let down her white veil to hide them; as on that day, years ago, when she had let down her black crape veil to conceal them, in the office of Anthony Dare. Different tears this time.

The sermon lasted just half an hour, and it had seemed only a quarter of one. The bishop then rose and gave the blessing, and the crowds began to file out. As the preacher was being marshalled by a verger through the choir to take his place in the procession next the high sheriff, Mr. Keating met him and grasped his hand.

"You are all right, Gar," he whispered, "and I am proud of having educated you. That sermon will tell home to some of the drones."

"I knew he'd astonish 'em!" ejaculated Dobbs, who had walked all the way from Deoffam to see the sight, to hear her master preach to the cathedral, and had fought out a standing-place for herself right in front of the pulpit. "His sermons aren't filled up with bottomless pits as are never full enough, like those of some preachers be."

That sermon and the Rev. Edgar Halliburton were talked of much in Helstonleigh that day.

But ere the close of another day the town was ringing with the name of Frank. He had led; he, Frank Halliburton! A cause of some importance was tried in the Nisi Prius Court, in which the defendant was Mr. Glenn the surgeon. Mr. Glenn, who had liked Frank from the hour he first conversed with him that evening at his house, now so long ago—a conversation at which you had the pleasure of assisting—who had also the highest opinion of Frank's abilities in his profession, had made it a point that his case should be intrusted to Frank. Mr. Glenn was not deceived. Frank led admirably, and his eloquence quite took the spectators by storm. What was of more importance, it told upon Mr. Justice Keene and the jury, and Frank sat down in triumph and won his verdict.

"I told you I should do it, mother," said he, quietly, when he reached Deoffam that night, after being nearly smothered with congratulations. "You will live to see me on the woolsack yet."

Jane laughed. She often had laughed at the same boast. She was alone that evening; Gar was attending the high sheriff at an official dinner at Helstonleigh. "Will no lesser prize content you, Frank?" asked she, jestingly. "Say, for example, the Solicitor-Generalship?"

"Only as a stepping-stone."