On Christmas Day in the Evening

“Let him alone,” said he. “He gets enough of prominent positions. If he wants to sit on the fence and kick his heels a while, let him. He’s certainly earned the right to do as he pleases to-night. By George!”

— Grace S. Richmond

“If you imagine that this little drama had escaped the attention of the departing congregation, headed the other way, you are much mistaken. The congregation was not headed the other way. From the moment when Burnett, Fraser and Tomlinson had started toward the pulpit, the congregation, to a man, had paused, and was staring directly toward them. It continued to stare, up to the moment when the handshaking took place. But then”

— Grace S. Richmond

“Ah, it’s not worth while,” agreed the old man quickly. “It’s not worth while for any of us to be hard on one another, no matter what the facts. Life is pretty difficult, at its best”

— Grace S. Richmond

“They were not bidden to lie down together like lambs, they were summoned to march together like lions”

— Grace S. Richmond

“But the faces were the same”

— Grace S. Richmond

“Sewall smiled. “Somehow this strikes me as the bigger one,” said he. “The wisest of my old professors used to say that the further you got into the country the less it mattered about your clothes but the more about your sermon. I’ve been wondering, all the way up, if I knew enough to preach that sermon. Isn’t there any minister in town, not even a visiting one?” “Not a one. You can’t get out of it, Billy Sewall, if you have got an attack of stage-fright”

— Grace S. Richmond

“Speaking of Aunt Eliza, Mother, makes me think of the old church. She used to talk so much about liking to hear the bell ring, right up over her head, next door. Does the bell ever ring, these days”

— Grace S. Richmond