The Colour of the Jewels.
Before the Confirmation day came the lost jewels were safely restored to Lady Carleton’s keeping, and the diamonds that had been hidden for eight years in a hollow tree were likely to be handed down as heirlooms to her children with additional care and interest.
But over the bent heads of the three young people who had had so much interest in their loss and their recovery, there flashed a glory of mystic light and colour. For the great west window of Ashcroft Church was filled with painted glass, jewel-like in pattern and colour. In the centre was the form of Him who made the lame to walk, and, as the winter afternoon sun streamed through the window, the earthly colours seemed transmuted into heavenly jewels.
Underneath was an inscription:—
“To the glory of God, in memory of Edgar Cunningham, and in thanksgiving for undeserved mercies, this window is given by all concerned in the losing and the finding of the jewels hidden in Ashcroft Wood.”
Lilian Carleton, Alwyn Cunningham, Harry Whittaker, Florence, and Wyn had all in their very different proportions contributed to the offering.
When in after life the three children looked back on their Confirmation day, it was lighted up for them by that wonderful colouring, and sweet with the recollection, for Florence, of the first person she had eared to please; for Geraldine, of the first she had much eared to help; and for Wyn, with a far deeper, tenderer memory of one who had not perhaps had the best things to give him, but who had given him all he could, the love of the beautiful things of Nature, and the example of uncomplaining courage and endurance.
Before that day came Alwyn had gone back to Boston, intending to return in the spring and bring his wife to visit Ashcroft. There was a great deal in his future life that would be difficult of adjustment, and perhaps those parts of it which he would spend under his father’s roof would not be the easiest to manage. But pardon and reinstatement were worth much, and he knew well that if his father had really disinherited him, apart from the obvious loss, the bitterness would have been unspeakable. And, as the sorrow of his brother’s loss turned into a sweet and tender memory, he felt that those three months with him had been worth any pain. He might well say:
My days with others will the sweeter be For those brief days I spent in loving thee.
To Mr Cunningham the reconciliation had cleared away a cloud of which he had never acknowledged the blackness. It was perhaps inevitable that the sense that poor Edgar had no more to suffer should transcend the grief for his loss; but Geraldine had a much kinder father in the future, and her welfare became his chief consideration, as she tried to brighten his home. She rode and walked with him; the occasional visits of Alwyn and his lively, earnest-tempered wife would oblige society and friendly intercourse, and Miss Cunningham of Ashcroft bade fair as time went on to find her life full of interest and occupation.