Explore "Blanche" by Mary Louisa Molesworth on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Rector of a large West-end church was ill. His illness was not very serious, nor did it threaten to be protracted, but it fell at a bad moment. It was the middle of the season, the time at which his church was more crowded than at any other of the year. He was an earnest and thoughtful man, and one who, despite much discouragement, laboured energetically to do his best; but on the Friday evening, preceding the second Sunday in June, he was obliged to acknowledge that for some days he would be unfit to officiate in his usual place.
"What shall I do? " he said in distress. "What shall I do about the sermon on Sunday morning? The curates can manage the rest, but it will be as much as they _can_ do. I cannot ask either of them to prepare another sermon so hurriedly. And the one I had ready has cost me much time and thought -- I had even built some hopes upon it. One never knows -- "