The old man lay dying at last. He had lingered on for months, now getting a little better and giving hope that the end might be deferred for a time, now sinking, so that it seemed as if it had come; but with all the alterations in his state moving onwards slowly and surely towards his rest. Now there was no longer any hope, even for a few days more. His two daughters and his son sat by his bedside, waiting. There was nothing to do but to wait, and to think.

It was towards the close of a sunny April day. The windows of the large eastward-facing room were wide open to admit the fragrant air. The birds were making a great to do in the Rectory garden, where the flowers of early spring flaunted their bright colours, and the lawns answered them with living verdure. Nearly every morning for five and forty years the old man who was dying had arisen from the bed on which he lay to look out on this scene. It might almost be said to have been what he had lived for. At the age of thirty-four, still a young man, with a wife still younger, and his two little girls, he had come to this assured haven, with no thought of leaving it until he had lived his life out to the full, where there was everything to make life what he wished it to be.

There was the pleasant roomy house, so admirably adapted to the delights of a quiet home life, the beautiful garden, the glebe and the outbuildings and the two or three cottages which added what was almost a little farm to what was almost a country mansion. And there was the substantial income, which would provide for the pleasures and hospitalities as well as the responsibilities of country life.

There was a little queer eighteenth century church, hardly more than a meeting-house, but big enough to hold such proportion of the three hundred or so inhabitants of the parish of Surley as would make a practice of attending it. It was to serve them that the Reverend William Cooper had been appointed to the living by the Bishop of the Diocese, and the house and the garden and the glebe and the substantial income were to be the reward of his service. None of the parishioners were very poor; the income would not be greatly depleted by the calls of charity. Nor would the time of their ministrant be too much occupied by them, supposing him to have other uses to which to put it.

He had done his work and taken his reward. There had never been any question in his mind that the one was not fitted to the other, nor any sense of diffidence before others who were spending themselves in the vineyard with material reward barely existent. It had been rather the other way about. The Rector of Surley was almost a dignitary, by reason of the reward, and carried himself so before his lesser brethren, but not with arrogance, for he was an amiable likeable man, and only living up to his position. These things were so; it was not even necessary to excuse them, at least in those days.

An amiable likeable man! He had gone about his parish for five and forty years, until there were only two or three in it who were older than he. Most of them now living he had christened into the Church, many he had buried, some he had married, a few he had helped, as one helps friends, not as one gives doles to the poor. He had touched the lives of all of them, and they had been satisfied with him. It was not for them to complain of the established order. These things came from above. If the Rector of Surley lived in a big house, with a thousand a year, the Squire lived in a bigger one, with ten thousand a year. The one was no more explicable than the other, and no more or less to be criticised. What might come from either to ameliorate the lot of the less fortunate would depend upon what sort of Squire or Rector there might be.

Lying in his bed, as he had lain for months past, or when his strength had rallied sitting wrapped up in a big chair by the window, the old man must sometimes have occupied himself in casting up his accounts preparatory to the great Audit to which he would soon have to submit them.

His life had been kindly and useful. He had never turned a deaf ear to the call of sympathy, nor shirked any of his easy duties, as easy duties are sometimes apt to be shirked when no punishment is to be expected from the shirking except from the disapproval of conscience. Probably he had given more thought to the episodes of his long life as they affected himself and his family than to the affairs of his ministry.

His wife had managed him until she had died, and then his daughters had managed him. In neither case had the managing been done in such a way as to irritate, or to lessen his dignity before the world. Perhaps he had hardly known that he had been managed, for he had had his own way, and had not been aware that it was often the way into which he had been guided. If both wife and daughters had sometimes raised bristles on the backs of neighbours, it had been his part to smooth them down, and he had gained liking by the contrast between himself and them. When his wife had died he would greatly have missed her sure capable hand in the affairs of life if his daughters had not then been of an age to fill her place. He was a man to be dependent upon women, and to draw the best that was in them towards himself.

The guidance exercised by women, however, seldom earns love, even when it escapes domination, and the guidance exercised by the old Rector's daughters did not always escape it, though they made his welfare the chief object in their lives. It was his son whom he loved, and thought most about, during the long hours in which he lay drifting towards the end.

He had come to him late in life. He was now not yet twenty-four. If he had been only a year older the great anxiety which had shadowed the old man's last months would have been lightened.

The living of Surley was in the gift of the Bishop, but it had been held by a Cooper for three generations, covering a period of nearly eighty years. If only it could be handed on to Denis!

He had been ordained in the previous Advent, with a title to his father's curacy. He had done the work of the parish, with the help, or oversight, of his sisters, and taken such of the services as is permitted to a Deacon. The people liked him, and if these matters were arranged by the popular voice he would certainly have been the next Rector of Surley. But he would not be eligible for Priest's Orders for another seven months. It was almost too much to hope that the Bishop would present a Deacon of only a few months' standing to one of the richest livings in his gift.

But the old man could not give up hope. These things had been done before; he had a dozen cases at his fingers' ends. But unfortunately they were all cases dating back many years, to a time when the fitting of rewards to work done, or to be done, in the Church, had not seemed of such importance as now. Fifty years ago nobody would have made any fuss about such an appointment; now-a-days there would certainly be a fuss. But he would not admit that there ought to be; he only tacitly accepted the fact that it was impossible for him to take any steps to bring about what he so ardently desired.

The Bishop had been to see him during his illness. Perhaps he might have put in a word then; he had thought beforehand that he might. But he had not done so. To that extent he accepted the changed conditions. But none the less he deplored them. He felt it to be hard, for one thing, that he would have to die without knowing what should happen after him. His own uncle, whom he had succeeded in the living, had been made contented by a promise on his deathbed. He himself had known that he would be presented to the living a month or more before it had become vacant.

Ah! things were ordered better in those days. There was more human kindliness, and not so many Radicals, to interfere with what had been established for so long and had worked so well.

The two women and the young man sat by the bedside, speaking sometimes in low voices to one another, otherwise busy with their thoughts. Now and then one of them would rise and put a hand to pillow or sheet, but more to give herself the comfort of performing some little service for him who would soon be beyond her care than because he still needed it. For he lay quite still, with eyes closed, breathing faintly as if in sleep. They would not have known that the end was very near if the doctor had not told them that the quiet breathing might cease at any time, and left them to wait for the end.

There was not much emotion in the minds of either of them. The passing had been too long and too gradual. Their brains were weary, if their active bodies were not. They had nursed him turn and turn about, with help from one or another of the faithful women about the house, but the nursing had made no great demands upon them. Neither would have admitted to the other that there was a slight sense of relief in the end having come at last. Gladly they would have kept him with them and spent themselves in his service, even if he should never speak to them or open his eyes upon them again. But they had grown used to the idea of losing him all the same. Life was strong in them, and there would be many things to do when he had gone.

The end came as the dusk began to gather in the corners of the room, with a fluttering breath that was like a faint sigh, and a silence hardly more complete than the silence that had been before. The old Rector of Surley was dead, and the way was open for a new Rector to be appointed.

The two sensible self-controlled women, who had for so long given their service with a cheerful capability that had seemed almost hard in its efficiency, faced a reaction that neither of them had been prepared for. They sobbed together, and confessed, each of them, that they had not so ardently wished that the dear old man should survive for a few hours or a few days longer than they now wished he had. They would never have him again alive. The thought was hardly to be borne. Their lives would be desolate.

This mood lasted all the evening, and was genuine enough in its regret for a time now past and not valued enough while it had lasted. Denis was accused, though not to his face, of want of heart, because he said very little, and had shed no tears whatever. By the end of the evening the fact that they had, and could still do so, had come to be a consolation. By the next morning it had become difficult to shed tears at will, though they still came on occasions, but at rarer intervals. When all the business in connection with the funeral and the notifying of friends and relations had to be met they were ready to meet it, and found satisfaction in the occupations with which every hour of the days that followed were filled.

The letters and the calls of sympathy were most gratifying, as showing the high esteem in which the late Rector, and his family, were held. One of the first to call was Mrs. Carruthers, from Surley Park. There had been a coolness, but death overrode everything.

The sisters were writing letters at the dining-room table.

"We had better go in together," said Rhoda. "It will be less awkward."

"If she doesn't say anything I don't see why we should," said Ethel. "Let bygones be bygones, I say, at a time like this."

"I wonder if the Bishop has said anything to her," said Rhoda, as they went across the hall together. The Bishop of the Diocese was Mrs. Carruthers's uncle.

Mrs. Carruthers was very young and very pretty; too young, the Misses Cooper were accustomed to say, and perhaps too pretty, though there might be two opinions about that, to be mistress of a property like Surley, which had been left to her unconditionally by her husband. The old Rector had been fond of her before the dispute had parted the Park and the Rectory, and even afterwards, for its details had been kept from him, and he had not realised that the break had been so complete as it actually had been.

Nothing was said about the cause of dispute, which had been concerned with the 'goings on' of a dairy-maid at Surley Park. There had been an episode with a young man, and the Misses Cooper, very stern upon keeping the morals of the parish up to concert pitch, had fastened themselves upon it firmly. But it was not the dairy-maid who had been concerned in the episode, and they and Mrs. Carruthers had differed as to the relative importance of their unfortunate mistake and of the fact that there had undoubtedly been something to complain of somewhere.

There were tears in Ella Carruthers's eyes as she came forward to meet the two sisters. "Oh, I am so sorry," she said. "The dear old man! Of course one knew the end must be coming, but it doesn't make it less hard to bear."

Rhoda and Ethel had tears too, to meet this. They had begun almost to enjoy the bustle, but were glad to be able to show that the sadder softer feelings still had sway with them. They were also relieved at the final disappearance of the coolness between themselves and their neighbour. There had been a formal mending of the breach some months before, but they had not been in her house since, nor she in theirs. Soon they were talking to her about their father as if they had always been friends, and she was giving them genuine consolation by the affection she showed herself to have entertained towards him. Their feelings grew warmer, especially when she said, after they had talked about the old Rector for some time: "I do hope Denis will succeed him. I am sure that is what he would most have liked."

This, from the Bishop's niece, might or might not be significant. The Bishop was known to be very fond of her, and had stayed with her once at Surley Park, during the year in which he had occupied his See. It was with a sense of excitement that they set themselves to find out exactly how significant it might be.

"It was the one thing that he really desired," said Rhoda. "I think he had almost made up his mind to speak a word to the Bishop about it, when he came over to see him. But I suppose he felt he couldn't. I know he didn't."

"I fancy," said Ethel, "that he thought he could safely leave it in the Bishop's hands. After all, it would be far the best thing for the parish. That is undoubted."

"And the Bishop might be expected to see that," said Rhoda, backing her up. "He is very wise and far-sighted. And he couldn't help liking and admiring our dear father."

The statement was almost a question. Ella Carruthers, faintly amused, treated it as such.

"Oh, no," she said. "He talked to me about him. He felt a great sympathy with him. I think he realised what his wishes were likely to be about Denis, though of course he didn't say anything about it to me."

The sisters did not ask themselves how, in that case, she could have divined the thoughts of her august relative. Both of them brightened visibly. "I don't like to hope too much," said Rhoda who, as the elder, always spoke first. "But it would be such a good thing for the parish."

"Everybody loves Denis," said Ethel. "There is nobody, I don't care who he is, who could influence them more. And we should be here to help him, as we always helped our dear father. They know our ways. Of course, one mustn't put it on personal grounds, but it would seem a pity for all our work here to be lost."

"We should work wherever we went," said Rhoda. "It is not ourselves we are thinking of. Neither of us would care to settle down to a selfish life without trying to influence our fellow-creatures for good. But I do feel that if we were not permitted to stay on and work here, a great deal that we have done during the last twenty years and more might be lost. People so soon relapse."

Ella Carruthers could hardly keep the smile from her lips. The idea of the parish relapsing into heathendom on the departure of the Misses Cooper amused her, though, in her softer mood towards them, she only found it rather pathetic that they should disclaim personal interest in the decision that was soon to be made. She knew little about the conditions of Church patronage, and still less as to what her uncle's ideas on the subject were. But she thought she might 'put in a word' when he came to the funeral, as he had, most gratifyingly, announced his intention of doing; she had reason to believe, generally, that her word had weight with him. She left them with heightened hopes, which, if hardly justified by any influence in her power to exercise, at least put the seal upon the reconciliation between her and them.

"She really is kind at heart," said Rhoda, as they went back into the dining-room, after saying good-bye to her. "I shan't be sorry to be friends with her again."

"Nobody can say we have kow-towed," said Ethel. "It was the principle we stood up for, and although we frankly admitted the mistake we made we have never given way an inch upon that."