ll the walls, the roof, the organ, and the pulpit,
until his active mind was satisfied so far as concerned the building
itself. Then he began to feel the silence, and he did not like it. He
longed to speak, but did not dare, because when he timidly looked up,
Miss Grath, catching his glance, scowled reproachfully, and looked
straight before her. Small and young as he was, he had learned to know
this woman with whom he lived, and he needed no more explicit warning
to hold his tongue. So he sat still, adding to the silence which
oppressed him.

It was with a sigh of relief that he saw the preacher rise, and heard
him speak; and it was with a throb of intense joy that his heart
warmed as the notes of the organ reached him for the first time in his
life. Thenceforward he was interested up to the point where the sermon
began. The tiresome monotone in which this was delivered, and the
impossibility of his comprehending what was said, soon fatigued his
little brain, and then lulled him to sleep.

I may mention parenthetically, what of course did not now enter Leon's
mind, for he never knew the subject of that first sermon which had
been preached at him. If it had been incomprehensible to the child,
the woman had understood well enough, for it had been aimed at her
especially. The preacher, I cannot call him a minister, for he truly
ministered unto none except himself, the preacher then, was a cold,
hard Scotchman, High Church of course. He firmly believed in the
damnation of infants, and a Hell of which the component parts would be
brimstone and fire in proper proportions. He also believed in the
efficacy of prayer, especially of his own. Therefore, it not
infrequently happened, that when any one incurred his ill will, which
was not difficult, he would offer up a prayer, consigning said
individual to the hottest tortures of the world below. He did this so
adroitly, that, while there were no plain personalities in his words,
his description of the sinner would be so specific, that the party of
the second part readily identified himself as the central figure of
the excoriation.

Now this saintly preacher had at one time demeaned himself, or so he
thought, sufficiently low to offer himself in marriage to Miss
Margaret Grath. She had declined the honor, and he had hated her ever
after. Like all true women, however, she had kept his secret, so that
none of the congregation knowing the relation which existed, or which
might have