As for Beverly, he
was assuming the resolute aspect of a sailor under fire,
and was imagining himself taking the whole storm of Fort
Constantine as he led an American squadron into the Bay
of Sevastopol. Tom did not know what the preacher said,
but was devising the method of his interview with
Greenhithe. Matty did know. Dear girl! she knew very
well. And with every well-rounded sentence of the sermon
she was more determined as to the method of her
appeal to Mrs. Gilbert, the widow of the notary. She
would search and look there.
Yes! and it was well for every one of them that they
went to that service. The sermon at the worst was but
twenty minutes. "Twenty minutes in length," said
Beverly, wickedly, "and no depth at all." But that was
not true nor fair; nor was that, either way, the thing
that was essential. By the time they had all sung
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"
even before the good old Doctor had asked for Heaven's
blessing upon them, it had come. To Mr. Molyneux it
had come in an hour's rest of mind, body, and soul. To
Matty it had come in an hour's calm determination. To
Mrs. Molyneux it had come in the certainty that there
is One Eye which sees through all hiding-places and
behind all disguises. To the children it had come,
because the hour had called up to them a hundred memories
of Galilee and Nazareth, of Mary Mother, and of children
made happy, to supplement and help out their legends of
Santa Claus.
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