Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/288

256 into the sleigh, tucked the rugs warmly around her, and put a hot brick at her feet. His solicitude hurt her. It was all for her material comfort. It did not matter to him what mental agony she might suffer over his strange attitude. For the first time in their married life Mary Bell felt resentment against her husband.

They drove along in silence, past the snow-powdered hedges of spruce, and under the arches of the forest roadways. They were late, and a great stillness was over all the land. David Bell never spoke. All his usual cheerful talkativeness had disappeared since the revival meetings had begun in Avonlea. From the first he had gone about as a man over whom some strange doom is impending, seemingly oblivious to all that might be said or thought of him in his own family or in the church. Mary Bell thought she would go out of her mind if her husband continued to act in this way. Her reflections were bitter and rebellious as they sped along through the glittering night of the winter’s prime.

“I don’t get one bit of good out of the meetings,” she thought resentfully. “There ain’t any peace or joy for me, not even in testifying myself, when David sits there like a stick or stone. If he’d been opposed to the revivalist coming here, like old Uncle Jerry, or if he didn't believe in public testimony, I