a
cherry; if the milk-sop is not to your taste, give him the sack and be
d----d to him." And with this homely advice Squire Gaunt dismissed the
matter and went to the stable to give his mare a ball.

* * * * *

So you see Mrs. Gaunt was discontented with Francis for not being an
enthusiast, and nettled with Leonard for being one.

The very next Sunday morning she went and heard Leonard preach. His
first sermon was an era in her life. After twenty years of pulpit
prosers, there suddenly rose before her a sacred orator; an orator born;
blest with that divine and thrilling eloquence that no heart can really
resist. He prepared his great theme with art at first; but, once warm,
it carried him away, and his hearers went with him like so many straws
on the flood, and in the exercise of this great gift the whole man
seemed transfigured; abroad, he was a languid, rather slouching priest,
who crept about, a picture of delicate humility, but with a shade of
meanness; for, religious prejudice apart, it is ignoble to sweep the
wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground: but, once in the pulpit,
his figure rose and swelled majestically, and seemed to fly over them
all like a guardian angel's; his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian
eye shot black lightning at the impenitent, and melted ineffably when he
soothed the sorrowful.

Observe that great, mean, brown bird in the Zooelogical Gardens, which
sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck!
That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at
him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his
wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, belonging to God's sky. Even so
Leonard was abroad in the world, but at home in the pulpit; and so he
somewhat crept and slouched about the parish, but soared like an eagle
in his native air.

Mrs. Gaunt sat thrilled, enraptured, melted. She hung upon his words;
and when they ceased, she still sat motionless, spell-bound; loath to
believe that accents so divine could really come to an end.

Even whilst all the rest were dispersing, she sat quite still, and
closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the
chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home,--chit-chat that
had been welcome enough coming home from other preachers.

And by this means she came hot and undiluted to her husband; she laid
her white hand on his shoulder,