“I should think I do,” laughed Uncle Alec.  “She was sitting right there where Cecily is now, and she got up at once and marched right out of the orchard, but at the gate she turned to call back indignantly, ’I guess you’d better wait till you’ve prayed the conceit out of yourself before you begin on me, Ned King.  I never heard such stuck-up sermons as you preach.’  Ned went on praying and never let on he heard her, but at the end of his prayer he wound up with ’Oh, God, I pray you to keep an eye on us all, but I pray you to pay particular attention to my sister Julia, for I think she needs it even more than the rest of us, world without end, Amen.’”

Our uncles roared with laughter over the recollection.  We all laughed, indeed, especially over another tale in which Uncle Edward, leaning too far over the “pulpit” in his earnestness, lost his balance altogether and tumbled ingloriously into the grass below.

“He lit on a big Scotch thistle,” said Uncle Roger, chuckling, “and besides that, he skinned his forehead on a stone.  But he was determined to finish his sermon, and finish it he did.  He climbed back into the pulpit, with the tears rolling over his cheeks, and preached for ten minutes longer, with sobs in his voice and drops of blood on his forehead.  He was a plucky little beggar.  No wonder he succeeded in life.”

“And his sermons and prayers were always just about as outspoken as those Julia objected to,” said Uncle Alec.  “Well, we’re all getting on in life and Edward is gray; but when I think of him I always see him a little, rosy, curly-headed chap, laying down the law to us from the Pulpit Stone.  It seems like the other day that we were all here together, just as these children are, and now we are scattered everywhere.  Julia in California, Edward in Halifax, Alan in South America, Felix and Felicity and Stephen gone to the land that is very far off.”

There was a little space of silence; and then Uncle Alec began, in a low, impressive voice, to repeat the wonderful verses of the ninetieth Psalm—­verses which were thenceforth bound up for us with the beauty of that night and the memories of our kindred.  Very reverently we all listened to the majestic words.

“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God....  For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night....  For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told.  The days of our years are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength, labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away....  So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom....  Oh, satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days....  And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”