Mary and his mother should be comforted one little instant sooner?  Could you or I wait to fold a napkin and lay it away if we might fly to a friend who was wearying for us?  Suppose God says:  ‘Fold that napkin and lay it away,’ do we do it cheerfully and submissively, choosing to do it rather than to hasten to our friend?  If a leper had stood in the way, beseeching him, if the dead son of a widow were being carried out, we could understand the instant’s delay, if only a little child were waiting to speak to the Lord, but to keep so many waiting just to lay the linen clothes aside, and, most of all, to wrap together that napkin and lay it by itself.  Only the knowing that the doing this was doing the will of God reconciles me to the waiting that one instant longer, that his mother need not have waited but for that.  So, John, perhaps you and I are waiting to do some little thing, some little thing that we do not know the meaning of, before God’s will can be perfect concerning us.  It may be as near to us as was the napkin about the head of the Lord.  I was forgetting that, after he died for us, there was any of the Father’s will left for him to do.  And I suppose he folded that napkin as willingly as he gave himself up to the cross.  John, that does help me—­I am so impatient at interruptions to what I call my ‘work,’ and I am so impatient for the Lord to work for me.”

“Yes,” he answered slowly, “it is hard to realize that we must stop to do every little thing.  But I do not stop, I pass the small things by.  Prudence, I am burning up with impatience to-night.”

“Are you?  I am very quiet.”

“If you knew something about Jerome that I do not know, and it would disturb me to know it, would you tell me?”

“If I should judge you by myself I should tell you.  How can one person know how a truth may affect another?  Tell me what you know; I am ready.”

But she trembled exceedingly and staggered as she walked.

“Take my arm,” he said, quietly.

She obeyed and leaned against him as they moved on slowly; it was too dark for them to see each other’s faces clearly, a storm was gathering, the outlines of the house they were approaching, were scarcely distinguishable.

“We are almost home,” she said.

“Yes, there!  Our light is flashing out.  Marjorie is lighting the parlor lamp.  I have in my pocket a letter from Jerome; I have had it a week; you seemed so quiet and happy I had not the heart to disturb you.  It was sent to the old address, I told him some one there would always find me.  He has not written because he thought we did not care to hear.  He has the name of an honest man there, he says.”

“Is that all?” she questioned, her heart beating with a rapid pulsation.  How long she had waited for this.