She found her husband seated at the dinner-table, with one turnip before him; and even that was not comestible; for it was his grandfather's watch, with a face about the size of a new-born child's. "Forty-five minutes past one, Kate," said he, ruefully. "Well, why not bid them serve the dinner?" said she, with an air of consummate indifference. "What, dine alone o' Sunday? Why, you know I couldn't eat a morsel without you, set opposite." Mrs. Gaunt smiled affectionately. "Well, then, my dear, we had better order dinner an hour later next Sunday." "But that will upset the servants, and spoil their Sunday." "And am I to be their slave?" said Mrs. Gaunt, getting a little warm. "Dinner! dinner! What! shall I starve my soul, by hurrying away from the oracles of God to a sirloin? Oh, these gross appetites! how they deaden the immortal half, and wall out Heaven's music! For my part, I wish there was no such thing as eating and drinking; 'tis like falling from Heaven down into the mud, to come back from such divine discourse and be greeted with 'dinner! dinner! dinner!'" The next Sunday, after waiting half an hour for her, Griffith began, his dinner without her. And this time, on her arrival, instead of remonstrating with her, he excused himself. "Nothing," said he, "upsets a man's temper like waiting for his dinner." "Well, but you have not waited." "Yes, I did, a good half-hour. Till I could wait no longer." "Well, dear, if I were you I would not have waited at all, or else waited till your wife came home." "Ah, dame, that is all very well for you to say. You could live on hearing of sermons and smelling to rosebuds. You don't know what 'tis to be a hungry man." The next Sunday he sat sadly down, and finished his dinner without her. And she came home and sat down to half-empty dishes; and ate much less than she used when she had him to keep her company in it. Griffith, looking on disconsolate, told her she was more like a bird pecking, than a Christian eating of a Sunday. "No matter, child," said she; "so long as my soul is filled with the bread of Heaven." Leonard's eloquence suffered no diminution, either in quantity or quality, and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was: and he had not the same temptation to dine at home he used to have. And, indeed, by degrees, instead of quietly enjoying his wife's company on that sweet day, he got to see less of her than on the week days. CHAPTER II Your mechanical preacher flings his words out happy-go-lucky; but the pulpit orator, like every other orator, feels his people's pulse as he speaks, and vibrates with them, and they with him.