Hearts were warm and open, souls were full of enthusiasm for the great work, wave on wave of intense feeling streamed through the crowded house.
Only in the Fernalds' pew was a spirit out of tune.
Fernald, good man though he was, had not yet forgiven. His wife had not tried.
"Don't talk to me!" she had cried passionately, when he had urged a reconciliation. "Forgive your enemies! Yes, but she hasn't done any harm to me!. It's my boys she's hurt! It don't say one word about forgiving other people's enemies!"
Yet Mrs. Fernald, for all her anger, seemed to have some inner source of consolation, denied her husband, over which she nodded to herself from time to time, drawing in her thin lips, and wagging her head decisively.
Vengeful bitterness and impotent rage possessed the hearts of Holdfast and J. Edwards.
This state of mind in young and old was not improved when, on arriving at the meeting a little late, they had found the head of the pew was occupied by Miss McCoy.
It was neither the time nor the place for a demonstration. No other seats were vacant, and Mrs. Fernald marched in and sat next to her, looking straight at the pulpit. Next came the boys, and murder was in their hearts. Last, Mr. Fernald, inwardly praying for a more Christian spirit, but not getting it.
Holdfast and young J. Edwards dared not speak in church or make any protest; but they smelled the cardamum seeds in the champing jaws beyond their mother, and they cast black looks at each other and very secretly showed clenched fists, held low.
In fierce inward rebellion they sat through the earlier speeches, and when the time came for the address of the occasion, even the deep voice of the brother from Asia failed to stir them. Was he not a missionary, and were not missionaries and all their works proved false?