Carol faithfully kept his appointment on the following Sunday. His cousins ceased to inquire, though not to wonder, what became of him every Sunday evening, and once appealed to Mrs. Mandeville for information. She smilingly replied, "It is a little secret between Carol and me. Perhaps you will be told some time, but not just yet." As Carol entered the cottage, Mr. Higgs rose from his seat, and stood upright. "Master Carol," he exclaimed in a voice of suppressed excitement, "it is the Truth, the blessed Truth you’ve told us. I can’t say I’ve lost my rheumatics entirely, for the joints are like rusty hinges that want a lot o’ oiling after being idle so long; but I’ve just been free from pain all the week; and my little grand-daughter hasn’t had one fit all the week." "No, Master Carol, she has not," Mrs. Scott added. "I won’t say she has never gone a whole week without one before, but for the last twelve months I don’t think she has, until this week." "Try not to remember anything that has been. Think it was all a dream, and she is awakening from it. I had a very cruel dream once, but I have awakened from it. God’s children must cling very closely to Him, then nothing can hurt them. It is when shadowy fears come between God and His image and likeness that dreadful things seem to happen to us." Mr. Higgs and Mrs. Scott did not understand yet how the boy had all the week been working for them--fighting error with the sword of Truth. "I want to read a chapter from the New Testament this evening," Carol said, opening the Bible. "It is always a favorite chapter, but one verse, my cousin said, seemed never to have impressed people as applicable to the present day. Yet the words are so simple. I will read the chapter first, then we’ll talk about that one verse." He read the 14th chapter of St. John from the 1st verse to the last, then asked quietly, "Do you remember that Jesus once said, ’Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away’?" "Yes, Master Carol. I remember those words well." "Then is there not a verse in the chapter I have just read which seems as if Jesus’ words _had_ failed?" The old man looked puzzled. "I can’t say that I know what you are alluding to, Master Carol."