jail-bird an' a rascal, an' nobody alive wants to have anything to do
with me.'

"'You be quiet,' says Jerry. 'I'm a jail-bird myself, but the Lord Jesus
has forgiven me an' made me happy; an' He'll do the same by you.'

"They kept me there a week, an' you'd think I was their own, the way
they treated me. But I stuck it out: 'When I see a man that's always
been respectable come to me an' give me work, an' say he's not afraid or
ashamed to, then maybe I'll believe in your Lord Jesus Christ you talk
about; but how am I goin' to without?'

"An' that very night it came. You know him well--the gentleman that
looks as if the wind had never blown rough on him, an' yet with an eye
that can't be fooled.

"'You don't need to tell me a word,' he says: 'I believe you are honest,
an' you can begin to-morrow if you're strong enough. It's light work,
an' it shall be made easier at first.'

"I looked at him, an' it seemed to me something that had frozen me all
up inside melted that minute. I burst out cryin', an' couldn't stop. An'
then, first thing I knew, he was down on his knees prayin' for me. 'Dear
Lord,' he said, 'he is Thy child, he has always been Thy child. Make him
know it to-night: make him know that Thy love has followed him and will
hold him up, so that his feet will never slip again.'

"These words stayed by me. I couldn't speak, an' he went away. He knew
what he'd done.

"That's all. Some of the men shake their heads: they say it wasn't
regular conversion. All I know is, the sense of God come into me then,
an' it's never left me. It keeps me on the watch for every soul in
trouble. I'm down on the docks o' nights. I know the signs, an' now an'
then I can help one that's far gone. I'm goin' myself, you see. There
ain't much left of me but a cough an' some bones, but I shall be up to
the last. God is that good to me that I'll go quick when I do go; but,
quick or slow, I bless Him every hour of the day for the old mission an'
my chance."

HELEN CAMPBELL.

WESTBROOK.

Ruth looked very warm and tired as she came up the path in the strong
sunlight; and in striking contrast to her sat Miss Custer in the
sheltered veranda, with her cool gray draperies flowing about her in the
most graceful folds that could be imagined, as though a sculptor's hand
had arranged them. Her dress was cut so as to disclose her white throat
rising, swan-like, above a ruffling of soft yellow lace; and her
sleeves, flaring a littl