y got done than there was
when they begun. Likely story, ain't it?"

Dora's eyes were large and grave.

"Why, Tode, it's in the Bible," she said, reverently.

Tode knew nothing about reverence, and next to nothing about the Bible.

"What of that?" he said, defiantly. "It's queer stuff all the same; and
what did that old man mean about his friend, and taking care of folks,
everybody, good or bad, and feeding 'em, and all that?"

"It's about Jesus, Tode. Don't you know; he died, you see, for us, and
if we love him he'll take care of us, and take us to heaven. Sometimes
do you think that you'll belong to him, Tode? I do once in a while."

"I don't know anything what you're talking about," was Tode's answer,
more truthful than grammatical.

"Why, give your heart to him, you know, and love him, and pray, and all
that. But, Tode, won't you run around to Martyn's and order the carriage
for us? John was to wait there until we came, and I guess he'll think we
are never coming."

Mrs. Hastings repeated the direction, and Tode vanished, brushing by in
his exit the very man who had prayed at his dying mother's bedside years
before, and who had intended to keep an eye on him. As he slid along the
icy pavements the boy ruminated on what he had heard, and especially on
that last explanation, "Why, give your heart to him, you know, and love
him, and pray, and all that." To whom, and how, and where, and when?
What a perfectly bewildering confusion it all was to Tode.

"I'll be hanged if I can make head or tail to any of it," he said aloud.

Then he whistled, but after a moment his whistle broke off into a great
heavy sigh. Someway there was in Tode's heart a dull ache, a longing
aroused that night, and which nothing but the All-seeing, All-pitying
Love could ever soothe.

"There were fourteen people in prayer-meeting," the Rev. John informed
his wife. "The two deacons of whom I spoke, and several other good men.
I couldn't make use of my lecture at all, for there were none present
but professing Christians, save and except Mrs. Pliny Hastings, who
apologized for _intruding_!"

And then the husband and wife laughed, a half-amused, half-sorrowful
laugh.

After a moment Mr. Birge added:

"There _was_ a rather rough-looking boy there; strayed in from the
storm, I presume. I meant to speak with him, but Mrs. Hastings annoyed
me so much that it escaped my mind until he brushed past me and
vanished."

CHAPTER IX.

"T