"
"He meant our dependence on th' Almighty," Naomi corrected, still more
snappishly. "William Geake's an odd-fangled man, but you might give
'en credit for good-feelin'. An', what's more, though I don't hold
wi' Christian talk, if a man have a got beliefs, I respect 'en for
standin' to 'em without shame."
"But I thought, a moment ago--" her mother began, and then subsided.
She was accustomed to small tangles in her own processes of thought,
and quite incapable, after years of blind acceptance, of correcting
Naomi's logic.
No more was said on the matter. The next Saturday, after receiving his
shilling, Mr. Geake knelt down without any hesitation. It was clear he
wished this prayer to be a weekly institution, and an institution it
became.
The women never knelt. Naomi, indeed, had never sanctioned the
innovation, unless by her silence, and her mother assisted only with a
very lugubrious "Amen," being too weak to stir from her chair. As the
months passed, it became evident to Geake that her strength would
never come back. The fever had left her, apparently for good; but the
rheumatism remained, and closed slowly upon the heart.
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