ounded spirit
had had a good deal to do with his physical infirmities--so that there
seemed a likelihood that he would be able in time to leave his sick-bed
and go forth once more, not indeed to laborious work, but to fill some
light post which the colonel had in store for him.

It was on a lovely afternoon that he was sitting up in his arm-chair,
dressed in clothes which he had never thought to put on again. He was
listening to the gentle but earnest voice of Mary Stansfield, as she
read to him from the Word of God, and spoke a few loving and cheering
words of her own upon the passage she had selected. A shadow fell
across her book; she looked up. The colonel and his nephew stood in the
open doorway.

"Don't let us interrupt you, Miss Stansfield," said the former; "I was
only looking round with my nephew, who has not been here before, to see
how things are going on in Bridgepath. We will call again!"

They passed on, and Miss Stansfield resumed her reading. But somehow or
other John Price's attention seemed to wander--he looked disturbed, and
fidgeted in his chair; and so his visitor, thinking that he had been
read to as long as he could hear with comfort and profit in his weak
state, closed the book, and rose to leave.

"Oh, don't go, miss!" cried the old man in a distressed voice. "I'm so
sorry; but something as I can't exactly explain just took away my
thoughts and troubled me when the colonel came to the door. But go on,
go on, miss; I'm never tired of hearing the good news from your lips."

"No, John," replied Miss Stansfield; "I think we shall do for to-day.
You are not strong enough yet to bear much strain of mind or body; and
Colonel Dawson will be coming in directly, and will like to have a word
with you, and so, I am sure, will Mr Horace; so I will say good-bye."

The other looked scared and bewildered, and made no reply. "Poor John!"
said his kind visitor to herself, as she left the cottage and went on
her way; "I am afraid I have tired him. And yet I think there must be
something more than that which troubles him."

A few minutes later the colonel and his nephew entered John Price's
house. "Come in, Horace," said Colonel Dawson; "you have not yet been
introduced to one who will, I hope, be spared to be a great helper in
the good work in Bridgepath, though he does not look much like a worker
at present. But the Lord has been doing great things for him already,
and, I doubt not, means to do