Aunt Affy, with her pretty, gray head, her light step, her words of comfort and courage, moved about like a benediction; Uncle Cephas, rough and kindly, with strength in reserve for every emergency, gave, to the house the headship it had always lacked; Joe, to-night, was fine and sturdy, and growing into somebody; would they miss her?
Was the girl going away any real part of the strength and beauty of the old Sparrow place?
Joe had asked her if she were “going for good.” Was to-night another turning-point?
If she stayed would her life to come be any different?
In anybody’s eyes was there a difference between belonging to the parsonage and belonging to the Sparrow place?
No one was taking her away, she was going of her own free will.
With a sudden impulse she dropped her satchel in Aunt Rody’s empty chair and ran up the kitchen stairs to stay a few moments alone in the chamber her mother used to have when she was a little girl.
“O Thou, by whom we come to God, The Life, the Truth, the Way! The path of prayer Thyself hast trod; Lord, teach me to pray.”
Judith stood on the parsonage piazza; a voice within was unfamiliar, then in a change of tone she recognized something and was reminded of her afternoon at Meadow Centre; that laugh she had heard before, it was not Don—it was—the face at the window looked out into the shadows,—it was Richard King. He was a strong tower; he was safe, like her parsonage life; she would go in and feel at home. No new face or voice would ever come between and keep her away. Across the room, as she discovered by a peep through the curtains, Marion sat with some of her usual pretty work in her hand; Roger was not there.
“In the excavations in Babylon,” Mr. King went on in easy continuation of the subject in hand, “a collection of bowls was found, inscribed with adjurations of all sorts of spirits by name, and with indications that could not be mistaken of medicines they once held. You know, that capital R with which the physician heads his prescription, believing it stands for Recipe, in the days of superstition was understood to be an appeal to Jupiter.”
“That was consistent,” Marion replied, still bending over her work.
“Imagine our physicians writing at the head of a prescription: _In the name of Jesus Christ_.”