red for at last."

He tried to be as usual, but he was very ill that night.

Patience found the money in her basket. She hated it and put it aside,
and it was only some time after that she was constrained to use it, only
then telling Stead whence it came, when he could endure to hear that the
uncle had done his best to be just.

CHAPTER XXIII. FULFILMENT.

"My spirit heats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory glides,
And mingles with the stars."
TENNYSON.

The year 1660 had come, and in the autumn, just as harvest was over, and
the trees on the slopes were taking tints of red, yellow, and brown, an
elderly clergyman, staff in hand, came slowly up the long lane leading
to Elmwood, whence he had been carried, bound to his horse, seventeen
years before.

He had not suffered as much as some of his fellow priests. After a term
of imprisonment in London, he had been transported to the plantations,
namely, the American settlements, and had fallen in with friends, who
took him to Virginia. This was chiefly colonized by people attached to
the Church, who made him welcome, and he had ministered among them till
the news arrived of the Restoration of Charles II, and likewise that the
lawful incumbents of benefices, who had been driven out, were reinstated
by Act of Parliament. Mr. Holworth's Virginian friends would gladly have
kept him with them, but he felt that his duty was to his original flock,
and set out at once for England, landing at Bristol. There, however, he
waited, like the courteous man he was, to hold communication with his
people, till he had written to Mr. Elmwood, and made arrangements with
him and Master Woodley.

They were grieved, but they were both men who had a great respect for
law and parliament, so they made no difficulties. Mr. and Mrs. Woodley
retired to the hall and left the parsonage vacant, after the minister
had preached a farewell sermon in the church which made everyone cry,
for he was a good man and had made himself loved, and there were very
few in the parish who could understand that difference between the true
Church and a body without bishops. Mr. Holworth had in the meantime gone
to Wells to see his own Bishop Piers, an old man of eighty-six, and it
was from thence that he was now returning. He had not chosen to enter
his parish till the intruded minister had resigned the charge, but he
had been somewhat disappointe