going to recognize Mr. Hill of
the prudential committee, and ask him to step up on the platform."

There fell another silence, as absolute as the first, when Mr. Hill
walked down the aisle and climbed the steps. Indeed, people were
stupefied, for the feed dealer was a man who had never opened his mouth
in town-meeting; who had never taken an initiative of any kind; who had
allowed other men to take advantage of him, and had never resented it.
And now he was going to speak. Would he defend the prudential committee,
or would he declare for the teacher? Either course, in Mr. Hill's case,
required courage, and he had never been credited with any. If Mr. Hill
was going to speak at all, he was going to straddle.

He reached the platform, bowed irresolutely to the chairman, and then
stood awkwardly with one knee bent, peering at his audience over his
glasses. He began without any address whatever.

"I want to say," he began in a low voice, "that I had no intention of
coming to this meeting. And I am going to confess--I am going to confess
that I was afraid to come." He raised his voice a little defiantly a the
words, and paused. One could almost hear the people breathing. "I was
afraid to come for fear that I should do the very thing I am going to
do now. And yet I was impelled to come. I want to say that my conscience
has not been clear since, as a member of the prudential committee, I
gave my consent to the dismissal of Miss Wetherell. I know that I was
influenced by personal and selfish considerations which should have had
no weight. And after listening to Miss Penniman I take this opportunity
to declare, of my own free will, that I will add my vote to that of
Judge Graves to reinstate Miss Wetherell."

Mr. Hill bowed slightly, and was about to descend the steps when the
chairman, throwing parliamentary dignity to the winds, arose and seized
the feed dealer's hand. And the people in the hall almost as one man
sprang to their feet and cheered, and some--Ephraim Prescott among
these--even waved their hats and shouted Mr. Hill's name. A New England
audience does not frequently forget itself, but there were few present
who did not understand the heroism of the man's confession, who were not
carried away by the simple and dramatic dignity of it. He had no need to
mention Mr. Worthington's name, or specify the nature of his obligations
to that gentleman. In that hour Jonathan Hill rose high in the respect
of Brampton, and som