at Annalise’s swollen eyes.  Priscilla could have cried that night when she went to bed, if she had not held tears in scorn, at the sickliness of her spirit, her spirit that she had thought more than able to keep her body in subjection, that she had hoped was unalterably firm and brave.  But see the uses of foolishness,—­the reaction from it is so great that it sends us with a bound twice as far again along the right road as we were while we were wise and picking our way with clean shoes slowly among the puddles.  Who does not know that fresh impulse, so strong and gracious, towards good that surges up in us after a period of sitting still in mud?  What an experience it is, that vigorous shake and eager turning of our soiled face once more towards the blessed light.  “I will arise and go to my Father”—­of all the experiences of the spirit surely this is the most glorious; and behold the prudent, the virtuous, the steadfast—­dogged workers in the vineyard in the heat of the day—­are shut out from it for ever.

Priscilla had not backslided much; but short as her tarrying had been among the puddles she too sprang forward after it with renewed strength along the path she had chosen as the best, and having completed the second of her good works—­the first had been performed just previously, and had been a warm invitation made personally from door to door to all the Symford mothers to send their children to tea and games at Baker’s Farm the next day, which was Sunday—­she came away very happy from the comforted Mrs. Jones, and met the two arriving comforters in the front garden.

Now Priscilla’s and Mrs. Jones’s last words together had been these: 

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Priscilla had asked, leaning over the old lady and patting her arm in farewell.

“No, deary—­you’ve done enough already, God bless your pretty face,” said Mrs. Jones, squeezing the five-pound note ecstatically in her hands.

“But isn’t there anything you’d like?  Can’t I get you anything?  See, I can run about and you are here in bed.  Tell me what I can do.”

Mrs. Jones blinked and worked her mouth and blinked again and wheezed and cleared her throat.  “Well, I do know of something would comfort me,” she said at last, amid much embarrassed coughing.

“Tell me,” said Priscilla.

“I don’t like,” coughed Mrs. Jones.

“Tell me,” said Priscilla.

“I’ll whisper it, deary.”

Priscilla bent down her head, and the old lady put her twitching mouth to her ear.

“Why, of course,” said Priscilla smiling, “I’ll go and get you some at once.”

“Now God for ever bless your beautiful face, darlin’!” shrilled Mrs. Jones, quite beside herself with delight.  “The Cock and ’Ens, deary—­that’s the place.  And the quart bottles are the best; one gets more comfort out of them, and they’re the cheapest in the end.”

And Priscilla issuing forth on this errand met the arriving visitors in the garden.