the wonders of Plymouth; but somehow the words had not come.
After displaying his presents he could find no more to say: and
feeling his father's hand laid on his shoulder, had burst into tears
and hidden his face in his mother's lap. He wanted to console them,
and they were pitying _him_--why he could not say--but he knew it was
so.

And now the Pantomime, Plymouth, everything, seemed to have slipped
away from him into a far past. Only his father and mother had drawn
nearer and become more real. He tried to tell himself one of the old
stories; but it fell into pieces like the fragments of coloured glass
he was handling, and presently he began to think of the glass in his
hands and let the story go.

"On Monday we'll set to work," said his father. "I dare say Joel"--
this was the carpenter down at Innis village--"will lend me a few
tools to start with. But the clearing up will take us all to-day."

They ate their dinner in the vestry. Taffy observed that his father
said: "_We_ will do this," or "_Our_ best plan will be so-and-so,"
and spoke to him as to a grown man. On the whole, though the dusk
found them still at work, this was a happy day.

"But aren't you going to lock the door?" he asked, as they were
leaving.

"No," said Mr. Raymond. "We shall win, sonny; but not in that way."

On the morrow Taffy rang the bell for service as usual. To his
astonishment Squire Moyle was among the first-comers. He led Honoria
by the hand, entered the Tredinnis pew and shut the door with a slam.
It was the only pew left unmutilated. The rest of the congregation--
and curiosity made it larger than usual--had to stand; but a wife of
one of the miners found a hassock and passed it to Humility, who
thanked her for it with brimming eyes. Mr. Raymond said afterward
that this was the first success of the campaign.

Not willing to tire his audience, he preached a very short sermon;
but it was his manifesto, and all the better for being short. He
took his text from Nehemiah, Chapter II., verses 19 and 20--
"_But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the
Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn,
and despised us, and said: 'What is this thing that ye do? Will ye
rebel against the King?_'"

"_Then answered I them and said unto them, 'The God of Heaven, He
will prosper us; therefore, we His servants will arise and build_.'

"Fellow-parishioners," he said, "you see the state of