ese things! Now _ain't_ that curious?"

"I should think he'd get kind of out of patience with them all," Tode
answered, earnestly, "and say, 'Let 'em go, then, if they're determined
to.'"

The old lady shook her head emphatically.

"No, he loves them you see. Do you suppose if my Winny and my boys
should go wrong, and not mind a word I say, I could give 'em up and say,
'Let them go then?' No indeed! I'd stick to 'em till the very last
minute, and I'd coax 'em, and pray over 'em day and night--and _my
love_, why it's _just_ nothing by the side of his. Why he says himself
that his love is greater than the love of a woman; so you see he sticks
to 'em all, and wants every one of them."

Tode resolved this thought in his mind for a little, then gave vent to
his new idea.

"Then I should think folks ought to be coaxing 'em, folks that love
_him_, I mean. If he loves all the people and wants them, and is trying
to get them, why then I should think all his folks ought to be trying,
too."

"That's it!" said the old lady, eagerly. "That's it exactly. He tells us
so in the Bible time and time again. 'Let him that heareth say come.'
Now you and me have heard, and according to that it's our business to
go right to work, and say 'come' the very first time we get a chance.
But, deary me! I do believe in my heart that's half the trouble, folks
won't do it; his own folks, too, that have heard, and have got one of
the mansions waiting for 'em. He's given them all work to do helping to
fill the others, and half the time they let it go, and tend to their own
work, and leave him to do the coaxing all alone."

"Mother," interrupted Winny, impatiently drumming on the corner of the
Bible, "I thought you said it was bedtime. I could have learned two
grammar lessons in this time."

The mother gave a gentle little sigh.

"Well, deary, so it is," she said. "We'll just have a word of prayer,
and then we'll go."

Tode in his little room took his favorite position, a seat on the side
of the bed, and lost himself in thought. Great strides the boy had taken
in knowledge since tea time. Wonderful truths had been revealed to him.
Some faint idea of the wickedness of this world began to dawn upon him.
All his life hitherto had been spent in the depths, and it would seem
that if he were acquainted with anything it must be with wickedness, yet
a new revelation of it had come to him. "Ye _will_ not come unto me,
that ye might have life." He did