erly
impossible, they put that thought from them at once. To stay at home in
perfect rest, seemed almost impossible, too. They looked at one another
in silence. What could be said?

"We will put it all out of our thoughts for to-day, love," said Mr
Inglis, in his painful whisper, when they were left alone. "At least we
will not speak of it to one another. We must not distrust His loving
care of us, dear, even now."

They did not speak of it to one another, but each apart spoke of it to
Him who hears no sorrowful cry of his children unmoved. He did not lift
the cloud that gloomed so darkly over them. He did not by a sudden
light from Heaven show them a way by which they were to be led out of
the darkness, but in it He made them to feel His presence. "Fear not,
for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God!" and lo! "the
darkness was light about them!"

So when the boys came home the father's face said plainly what both
heart and lip could also say, "It is all right." And the mother's said
it, too, with a difference.

Of course, all that the doctors had said was not told to the children.
Indeed the father and mother did not speak much about it to each other
for a good many days. Mr Inglis rested, and in a few days called
himself nearly well again, and but for the doctor's absolute
prohibition, would have betaken himself to his parish work as usual. It
was not easy for him to submit to inactivity, for many reasons that need
not be told, and when the first Sabbath of enforced silence came round,
it found him in sore trouble, _knowing_, indeed, where to betake
himself, but _feeling_ the refuge very far away.

That night he first spoke to David of the danger that threatened him.
They were sitting together in the twilight. The mother and the rest
were down-stairs at the usual Sunday reading and singing, which the
father had not felt quite able to bear, and now and then the sound of
their voices came up to break the stillness that had fallen on these
two. David had been reading, but the light had failed him, and he sat
very quiet, thinking that his father had fallen asleep. But he had not.

"Davie," said he, at last, "what do you think is the very hardest duty
that a soldier may be called to do?"

David was silent a minute, partly from surprise at the question, and
partly because he had been thinking of all that his father had been
suffering on that sorrowful silent day, and he was not quite sure