“It is not right to prolong your sorrow for your dear one in this fashion,” said the Canon. “Can we not trust dear David to the Everlasting Arms, and fulfil our own appointed days here below?”
His daughter made no reply.
“This is reaction, Flora,” said Canon Morchard decisively. “When this heavy blow first fell upon us, you were my courageous daughter, my comforter—so far as that was humanly possible. Do not falter now—remember that whom He loveth, He chastizeth.”
“I do remember,” she said, her face a mask of misery.
“You are not well,” said the Canon tenderly. “I shall no longer allow you to exert yourself as you have been doing. Lucilla here will arrange that your class shall be temporarily given over to other management, and no doubt she can herself arrange to replace you at the choir-practices.”
“I can arrange it,” Lucilla said, “but——”
She looked at her sister.
Flora broke into a tempest of tears.
“Don’t take away what work I can do,” she sobbed out. “My life is useless enough, in all conscience.”
“Flora!” the Canon thundered. “Have a care! Such a thought is perilously near to being a blasphemous one.”