on Sunday
was supplied as often as possible from abroad, and when it could not be,
the people managed as well as they could, and that was better than
usual, for all hearts were softened and touched by the sorrow that had
come on them as a people, and nothing was allowed to trouble or annoy
the minister that could be prevented by them. They would have liked him
to go away as the doctor had advised, and the means would have been
provided to accomplish it, but the minister would not hear of being sent
away. He felt, he said, that he would have a better chance for recovery
at home. Not that there was any chance in that, according to his
thought. It was all ordered, and it would all be well, whichever way it
was to end, and he was best and happiest at home.

And so the time passed on, and then, and afterwards, no one ever thought
or spoke of these days but as happy days. And yet, in the secret heart
of every one of them, of the mother and the children, and of the kind
people that came and went, there was a half-conscious waiting for
something that was drawing near. It was a hope, sometimes, and
sometimes it was a dread. The neighbours put it into words, and the
hopeful spoke of returning health and strength, and of the lessons of
faith and love they should learn by and by, through the experience of
the minister in the sick room; and those who were not hopeful, spoke of
other lessons they might have to learn through other means. But in the
house they only waited, speaking no word of what the end might be.

At last there came a day, when no words were needed, to tell what
messenger of the King was on his way. The hushed voices of the
children, the silence in the house, told it too plainly. The laboured
breathing of the sick man, the feverish hand, the wandering eye, were
visible tokens that death was drawing near. The change came suddenly.
They were not prepared for it, they said. But there are some things for
which we cannot make ourselves ready, till we feel ourselves shuddering
under the blow.

Ah! well. He was ready, and the rest mattered little. Even the mother
said that to herself and to him, with the sobbing of their children in
her ears. She did not sob nor cry out in her pain, but kept her face
calm and smiling for him till the very last. And because, with his
laboured breathing, and the pain which held him fast, he could not say
to her that which was in his heart, she said it all to him--how they h