Under the Storm

Stead smiled and his lips moved in thankfulness.

"And if Ben would come with her," added Andrew, "I'd be a brother to him."

"Parson wants Ben," said Stead. "He says he can make a scholar of him, and maybe a parson, and it will not be so lonesome in the vicarage."

"And your farm?"

"Rusha and her man take that. They have saved enough to build the house. Yes, all is well. It is great peace and thankfulness."

Patience returned with the cushions she had borrowed and they brought Steadfast home, very much exhausted, and not speaking all the way. Perhaps the unusual motion and exertion had made the bullet change its place, for he hardly uttered another word, and that night, as he had said to Ben, he was healed for ever of all his ills.

The funeral sermon that Mr. Holworth preached the next Sunday, was on the text so dear to all the loyal hearts who remembered the White King's coronation text—

"Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

THE END