But the effort was successful, and as the full-toned young voice gave out the text his natural power of concentration resumed its sway, the glorious subject before him absorbed all his thoughts, and the natural fluency with which Henry Halford expressed his ideas did not forsake him now. He had determined, long before his ordination, that he would adopt extemporaneous preaching, and as the subject he had chosen fired the intellectual powers and Christian principles of the young clergyman, his hearers sat mute with surprise and admiration. The sermon might have been styled an exposition of the thirteenth chapter of the First of Corinthians, for not one of the attributes of charity did he omit to notice; but his text contained only these words--"The greatest of these is charity." For more than half an hour did the congregation sit in breathless attention to the sound reasoning, the clear explanations, and the bursts of eloquence which almost electrified them; and when they rose as he finished his sermon, there was not one who did not feel sorry it was over. But we are forgetting our friends in the front pew of the gallery. When Mary Armstrong bowed her head in the short prayer before the sermon, she had not particularly noticed the face of the new curate, as she supposed him to be. The voice, at first low and indistinct, presently sounded familiar. Yes, she had heard it before, but where? It ceased, and as she rose from her knees and directed her attention to the preacher, she recognised in the pale young clergyman before her, Henry Halford! One glance at her father, and she saw by his returned glance, that he also knew the name of the stranger who now as the servant of God stood forth fearlessly as the instructor of the man who loved his money better than his child's happiness. Mary in her startled surprise felt the colour forsaking cheek and lips, and a tendency to faint; but with a strong effort she roused herself. To be carried out of church fainting was an ordeal she dreaded, and therefore struggled against with all her strength. More than once Mr. Armstrong looked at her anxiously, but she did not flinch. No; she would stay and brave it all. The conduct of Henry Halford also tended to restore her self-possession, and before long she as well as her father became too deeply interested in the sermon and the subject to think much of their surprise at finding who was the preacher. The attentive congregation, the summer evening associations to which reference has been made, all had an influence upon the young girl's mind, and for years after she never attended a summer evening service in a country church without recalling this evening at Kilburn. But when they rose to leave the church, there was a dread at Mary's heart of what her father might say or suspect.