"Why, they've fixed up the sheds!"
Mattie nodded. She was trembling with the delicious excitement of it—she wanted him hurried into the church at once. He had hardly time to think before he was whirled up to the new porch, and Marsden came out, followed by several women. He was bewildered by it all. Marsden helped him out with hearty voice, sounding:
"Careful now! Don't hurry!"
Mattie took one arm, and so he entered the church. Everything repainted! Everything warm and bright and cozy!
The significance of it came to him like a wave of light, and he took his seat in the pulpit chair and stared at them all with a look on his pale face which moved them more than words. He was like a man transfigured by an inward glow. His eyes for an instant flamed with this marvellous fire, then darkened, softened with tears, and his voice came back in a sob of joy, and he could only say:
"Friends—brethren!"
Marsden, after much coughing, said:
"We all united on this. We wanted to have you come to the church and—Well, we couldn't bear to have you see it again the way it was."
He understood it now. It was the sign of a united community. It set the seal of Christ's victory over evil passions, and the young preacher's head bowed in prayer, and they all knelt, while his weak voice returned thanks to the Lord for his gifts.
Then they all rose and shook off the oppressive solemnity, and he had time to look around at all the changes. At last he turned to Mattie and reached out his hand—he had the boldness of a man in the shadow of some mighty event which makes false modesty and conventions shadowy things of little importance. His sharpened interior sense read her clear soul, and he knew she was his, therefore he reached her his hand, and she came to him with a flush on her face, which died out as she stood proudly by his side, while he said: