Our clergyman has delivered to his sable flock his first sermon,
which Dad Daniel and his compatriots pronounce great and good,--just
what a sermon should be. Such pathos they never heard before; the
enthusiasm and fervency with which it was delivered inspires
delight; they want no more earnestness of soul than the fervency
with which his gesticulations accompanied the words; and now he has
obtained a furlough that he may go into the city and console his old
master. A thrill of commiseration seizes him as he contemplates his
once joyous master now in prison; but, misgivings being useless,
onward he goes. And he will see old Bob, recall the happy incidents
of the past, when time went smoothly on.
He reaches the city, having tarried a while at missus's villa, and
seeks M'Carstrow's residence, at the door of which he is met by
Franconia, who receives him gratefully, and orders a servant to show
him into the recess of the hall, where he will wait until such time
as she is ready to accompany him to the county prison. M'Carstrow
has recently removed into plainer tenements: some whisper that
necessity compelled it, and that the "large shot" gamblers have
shorn him down to the lowest imaginable scale of living. Be this as
it may, certain it is that he has not looked within the doors of his
own house for more than a week: report says he is enjoying himself
in a fashionable house, to the inmates of which he is familiarly
known. He certainly leads his beautiful wife anything but a pleasant
or happy life.
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