te
his dinner stintingly, oppressed by the thought that there were men,
women, and children, with no dinner to sit down to, and would relieve his
mind by going out in the afternoon to look for some need that he could
supply, some honest struggle in which he could lend a helping hand. That
any living being should want, was his chief sorrow; that any rational
being should waste, was the next. Sally, indeed, having been scolded by
master for a too lavish use of sticks in lighting the kitchen fire, and
various instances of recklessness with regard to candle ends, considered
him 'as mean as aenythink;' but he had as kindly a warmth as the morning
sunlight, and, like the sunlight, his goodness shone on all that came in
his way, from the saucy rosy-cheeked lad whom he delighted to make happy
with a Christmas box, to the pallid sufferers up dim entries, languishing
under the tardy death of want and misery.

It was very pleasant to Mr. Tryan to listen to the simple chat of the old
man--to walk in the shade of the incomparable orchard, and hear the story
of the crops yielded by the red-streaked apple-tree, and the quite
embarrassing plentifulness of the summer-pears--to drink-in the sweet
evening breath of the garden, as they sat in the alcove--and so, for a
short interval, to feel the strain of his pastoral task relaxed.

Perhaps he felt the return to that task through the dusty roads all the
more painfully, perhaps something in that quiet shady home had reminded
him of the time before he had taken on him the yoke of self-denial. The
strongest heart will faint sometimes under the feeling that enemies are
bitter, and that friends only know half its sorrows. The most resolute
soul will now and then cast back a yearning look in treading the rough
mountain-path, away from the greensward and laughing voices of the
valley. However it was, in the nine o'clock twilight that evening, when
Mr. Tryan had entered his small study and turned the key in the door, he
threw himself into the chair before his writing-table, and, heedless of
the papers there, leaned his face low on his hand, and moaned heavily.

It is apt to be so in this life, I think. While we are coldly discussing
a man's career, sneering at his mistakes, blaming his rashness, and
labelling his opinions--'he is Evangelical and narrow', or
'Latitudinarian and Pantheistic' or 'Anglican and supercilious'--that
man, in his solitude, is perhaps shedding hot tears because his sacrifi