The Colonel, never encouraging painful subjects, made no rejoinder.

"Bring George to see me to-morrow. I shrunk from asking it before:
I thought the sight of him would too much revive old sorrows; but I feel
I should accustom myself to face every memory. Bring him."

The next day the Colonel took George to Darrell's; but George had been
pre-engaged till late at noon, and Darrell was just leaving home, and at
his street door, when the uncle and nephew came. They respected his time
too much to accept his offer to come in, but walked beside him for a few
minutes, as he bestowed upon George those compliments which are sweet to
the ears of rising men from the lips of those who have risen.

"I remember you, George, as a boy," said Darrell, "and thanked you then
for good advice to a schoolfellow, who is lost to your counsels now."
He faltered an instant, but went on firmly: "You had then a slight defect
in utterance, which, I understand from your uncle, increased as you grew
older; so that I never anticipated for you the fame that you are
achieving. Orator fit--you must have been admirably taught. In the
management of your voice, in the excellence of your delivery, I see that
you are one of the few who deem that the Divine Word should not be
unworthily uttered. The debater on beer bills may be excused from
studying the orator's effects; but all that enforce, dignify, adorn, make
the becoming studies of him who strives by eloquence to people heaven;
whose task it is to adjure the thoughtless, animate the languid, soften
the callous, humble the proud, alarm the guilty, comfort the sorrowful,
call back to the fold the lost. Is the culture to be slovenly where the
glebe is so fertile? The only field left in modern times for the ancient
orator's sublime conceptions, but laborious training, is the Preacher's.