ven when reviled and persecuted.

Ay, and for all his many cares, John Halifax looked like a man who was
"blessed."

Blessed, and happy too, throughout that day, especially in the midst of
the mill-yard dinner--which reminded me forcibly of that feast at which
guests were gathered out of the highways and hedges--guests such as
John Halifax liked to have--guests who could not, by any possibility,
"recompense"' him. Yet it did one's heart good to hear the cheer that
greeted the master, ay, and the young master too, who was to-day for
the first time presented as such: as the firm henceforward was to be,
"Halifax and Son."

And full of smiling satisfaction was the father's look, when in the
evening he stood in the midst of his children waiting for "Guy's
visitors," as he pertinaciously declared them to be--these fine people,
for whose entertainment our house had been these three days turned
upside down; the sober old dining-room converted into a glittering
ball-room, and the entrance-hall a very "bower of bliss"--all green
boughs and Chinese lanterns. John protested he should not have known
his own study again; and that, if these festive transformations were to
happen frequently he should soon not even know himself!

Yet for all that, and in spite of the comical horror he testified at
this first bouleversement of our quiet home ways, I think he had a real
pleasure in his children's delight; in wandering with them through the
decorated rooms, tapestried with ivy and laurel, and arbor vitae; in
making them all pass in review before him, and admiring their handiwork
and themselves.

A goodly group they made--our young folk; there were no "children"
now--for even Maud, who was tall and womanly for her age, had bloomed
out in a ball dress, all white muslin and camellias, and appeared every
inch "Miss Halifax." Walter, too, had lately eschewed jackets, and
began to borrow razors; while Edwin, though still small, had a keen,
old-man-like look, which made him seem--as he was, indeed, in
character--the eldest of the three. Altogether, they were "a fine
family," such as any man might rejoice to see growing, or grown up,
around him.

But my eyes naturally sought the father as he stood among his boys,
taller than any of them, and possessing far more than they that quality
for which John Halifax had always been remarkable--dignity. True,
Nature had favoured him beyond most men, giving him the stately,
handsome presence, bef