ngly, but could not utter a word.

"You must speak for your father, David. Perhaps you ought to have
spoken before this. We can do so little for the dead that any wish of
theirs that is positive ought to be sacredly granted. What do you
say?"

"It is hard, minister. But what you say is right, that I will do."

"We will not touch the Sabbath day, David. I will ask the people to
come to the kirk next Wednesday afternoon. The men will not be at
sea, and the women will be at leisure then. What do you think?"

[Illustration: PEAT-GATHERERS.]

"As you think, minister."

"Tell them just what you have told me. I believe every word you have
said, and I will stand by you--I and all good men and women, I am
sure."

"Thank you, minister."

But he could scarcely utter the words. He had often thought of this
ordeal; now that it was really to face, his heart utterly failed
him. He went straight to Nanna, and she forgot her own sorrow in his,
and so comforted and strengthened him that he went away feeling
that all things would be possible if she was always as kind and
sympathetic.

It was then Friday, and Wednesday came inexorably and swiftly. David
tried in every way to prepare himself, but no strength came from his
efforts. Prayer, nor meditation, nor long memories of the past,
nor hopes for the future, had any potency. He was stupefied by
the thing demanded of him, and the simple, vivid cry which always
brings help had not yet been forced from his lips. But at the
last moment it came. Then the coldness and dumbness and wretched
inertness that had bound him, body and soul, were gone. When he saw
Matilda Sabiston enter the kirk, her eyes gleaming and her face eager
with evil expectations, he felt the wondrous words of David[3]
burning in his heart and on his lips, and he was no longer afraid.
Psalm after psalm went singing through his soul, and he said joyfully
to himself, "Sometimes God is long in coming, but he is _never too
late_."

The minister did not ascend the pulpit. He stood at the table, and
after a prayer and a hymn he said:

"We have come together this afternoon to hear what David Borson has
to say in regard to the charge which Matilda Sabiston has made for
twenty-six years against his father Liot Borson."

"That question was decided long ago," said an old man, rising slowly.
"I heard Minister Ridlon give verdict concerning it at the funeral
of Liot's wife."

"It was _not_ decided," cried Matilda, standi