Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/241

Rh Windsor, who looked forward to doing just that some day.

In chapel that morning the rector read the one hundred and third Psalm, the psalm in which are verses that are spoken above the dead, the psalm in which are other verses of rejoicing for the living. The boys who had heard his quivering voice when he made the announcement in the schoolroom the night before caught now the exultation and the fervor with which he read the words, and in the same spirit made the responses.

After that they all knelt; and in place of the gloomy prayer for the desperately sick, with its clause of resignation to a grievous outcome, the rector read the thanksgiving on behalf of those who have been brought back from the valley of death. And the murmuring, slumberous "Amen!" of the boys rose to the Gothic arches and died whispering away.

Rupert's return to health was slow. It was not until a few days before the beginning of the Easter vacation that his friends were ad-