Long illness, with all the thought and reflection it had brought, had
so far changed and refined Stead that his awkward bashfulness and
lack of words had passed from him, and when he saw the clergyman
overcome with emotion at the thought of all he had undergone he said,
"Never heed it, your reverence, it has come to be all joy to me to
have had a little to bear for the Master! 'Tis hard on Patience and
Ben, but they are very good to me; and being sick gives time for such
comforts as God sends me. It is more than all I could have had
here."
"I am sure of that, my dear boy. I was not grieving that I gave you
the trust, but thinking what a blessed thing it is to have kept it
thus faithfully."
Two Sundays later, the Feast was again meetly spread in Elmwood
Church, the Altar restored to its place, and all as reverently
arranged as it could yet be among the broken carved work.
In some respects it was a mournful service, few there were who after
the lapse of seventeen years even remembered the outlines of the old
forms; and the younger people knew not when to kneel or stand.
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