to his ideas. He sat late on Saturday, writing; he watched through
the night till Sunday morning was far advanced. He had never taken
such pains with any sermon, and he was only half satisfied with it
after all.

Mrs Farquhar had comforted the bitterness of Sally's grief by giving
her very handsome mourning. At any rate, she felt oddly proud and
exulting when she thought of her new black gown; but when she
remembered why she wore it, she scolded herself pretty sharply for
her satisfaction, and took to crying afresh with redoubled vigour.
She spent the Sunday morning in alternately smoothing down her skirts
and adjusting her broad hemmed collar, or bemoaning the occasion with
tearful earnestness. But the sorrow overcame the little quaint vanity
of her heart, as she saw troop after troop of humbly-dressed mourners
pass by into the old chapel. They were very poor--but each had
mounted some rusty piece of crape, or some faded black ribbon.
The old came halting and slow--the mothers carried their quiet,
awe-struck babes.

And not only these were there--but others--equally unaccustomed to
nonconformist worship: Mr Davis, for instance, to whom Sally acted
as chaperone; for he sat in the minister's pew, as a stranger; and,
as she afterwards said, she had a fellow-feeling with him, being a
Church-woman herself, and Dissenters had such awkward ways; however,
she had been there before, so she could set him to rights about their
fashions.

From the pulpit, Mr Benson saw one and all--the well-filled Bradshaw
pew--all in deep mourning, Mr Bradshaw conspicuously so (he would
have attended the funeral gladly if they would have asked him)--the
Farquhars--the many strangers--the still more numerous poor--one or
two wild-looking outcasts, who stood afar off, but wept silently and
continually. Mr Benson's heart grew very full.

His voice trembled as he read and prayed. But he steadied it as he
opened his sermon--his great, last effort in her honour--the labour
that he had prayed God to bless to the hearts of many. For an instant
the old man looked on all the upturned faces, listening, with wet
eyes, to hear what he could say to interpret that which was in their
hearts, dumb and unshaped, of God's doings as shown in her life.
He looked, and, as he gazed, a mist came before him, and he could
not see his sermon, nor his hearers, but only Ruth, as she had
been--stricken low, and crouching from sight, in the upland field by
Llan-dhu--li