"Reuben,—my boy!"
"She's in heaven, isn't she, father?"
"God only knows, my son. He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy."
Small as he was, the boy flushed at this:—
"I think it's a bad God, if she isn't in heaven.'
"Nay, Reuben, little one, blaspheme not: His ways are not as our ways. Kiss her now, and we will sit down to our supper."
And so they passed out together to their lonely repast. It had been a cheerful meal in days gone, this Sunday's supper. For the dinner, owing to the scruples of the parson, was but a cold lunch always; and in the excited state in which the preacher found himself between services, there was little of speech; even Reuben's prattle, if he ventured upon it, caught a quick "Hist!" from the mamma. But with the return of Esther from the afternoon Bible-class, there was a big fire lighted in the kitchen, and some warm dishes served, such as diffused an appetizing odor through the house. The clergyman, too, wore an air of relief, having preached his two sermons, and showing a capital appetite, like most men who have acquitted themselves of a fatiguing duty. Besides which, the parson guarded that old New England custom of beginning his Sabbath at sundown on Saturday,—so that, by the time the supper of Sunday was fairly over, Reuben could be counting it no sin, if he should steal a run into the orchard. Nay, it is quite probable that the poor little woman who was dead had always welcomed cheerily the opened door of Sunday evening, and the relaxing gravity, as night fell, of her husband's starched look.
What wonder, if she had loved, even as much as the congregational singing, the music of the birds at the dusk of a summer's day? It was hard measure which many of the old divines meted out, in excluding from their ideas of worship all alliance with the charms of Nature, or indeed with any beauties save those which were purely spiritual. It is certain that the poor woman had enjoyed immensely those Sabbath-evening strolls through the garden and orchard, hand in hand with Reuben and the minister,—with such keen and exhilarating sense of God's goodness, of trust in Him, of hope, as was not invariably wakened by the sermons of her Benjamin.
On the evening of which we speak, the father and son walked down the orchard alone. The birds sang their merriest as day closed in; and as they turned upon their walk, and the good man saw through the vista of garden and orchard a bright light flitting across an upper window of his house, the mad hope flashed upon him for an instant (such baseless fancies will sometimes possess the calmest minds) that she had waked,—his Rachel,—and was there to meet him. The next moment the light and the hope were gone. His fingers gave such a convulsive grip upon the hand of his little boy that Reuben cried out with pain, "Papa, papa, you hurt me!"
The parson bent down and kissed him.