ch time to spare
when it was over.

"You had better not try to go out this morning, dear Faith," Mr. Linden
said as they left the table and came round the fire in the sitting-room.

"O yes! I can go.--I _must_ go"--she added softly.

"I have not much to tell you,"--he said in the same tone,--"nothing,
but what is most sweet and fair. Would you like to go up there with me
by and by?"

"Yes.--After church?"

"After church in the afternoon would give us most time."

The Sunday classes were first met--_how_ was not likely to be forgotten
by scholars or teachers. It was an absorbing hour to Faith and her two
little children that were left to her; an hour that tried her very
much. She controlled herself, but took her revenge all church time. As
soon as she was where nobody need know what she did, Faith felt
unnerved, and a luxury of tears that she could not restrain lasted till
the service was over. It lasted no longer. And the only two persons
that knew of the tears, were glad to have them come.

After the afternoon service, when people were not only out of church
but at home, Mr. Linden and Faith set out on their solitary drive--it
was too far for her to walk, both for strength and time,--the afternoon
was well on its way.

The outer room into which Faith had first gone the day before, had a
low murmur of voices and a little sprinkling of people within; but Mr.
Linden let none of them stop her, and merely bowing as he passed
through, he led her on. In the next room were two of the boys, but they
went away at once; and Mr. Linden put his arm round Faith, letting her
lean all her weight on him if she chose, and led her up to the bedside.
They stood there and looked--as one might look at a ray of eternal
sunlight falling athwart the dark shadows of time.

The child lay in his deep sleep as if Mr. Linden had just laid him
down; his head a little turned towards them, a little drooping, his
hands in their own natural position on breast and neck. A faint
pink-tinted wrapper lay in soft folds about him, with its white frills
at neck and wrists,--on his breast a bunch of the first snowdrops spoke
of the "everlasting spring, and never withering flowers!"

With hearts and faces that grew every moment more quiet, more steady,
Johnny's two teachers stood and looked at him,--then knelt together,
and prayed that in the way which they had shewed him, they might
themselves be found faithful.

"You shouldn't say _we_"--said Fai