e."

"Does Yoden farm do anything worth while?"

"To be sure it does. Lugur helps Harry about the farm and Harry likes
work in the open, but Harry's voice is worth many farms. It has improved
lately, and next week he goes to Manchester to sing in oratorio. He will
bring a hundred pounds or more back with him."

"Then at last he is satisfied and happy."

"Happy as the day is long. He is wasteful though, in money matters, and
too ready to give the men he knows a sovereign if they are in trouble.
And it is just wasting yourself to talk to him about wasting money. I
told him yesterday that I had heard Ben Shuttleworth had been showing a
sovereign Mr. Harry gave him and that he ought not to waste his money,
and he said some nonsense about saved money being lost money, and that
spending money or giving it away was the only way to save it. Harry
takes no trouble and Medway, the new preacher, says, Henry Hatton lifts
up your heart, if he only smiles at you."

"So he does, mother--God bless him!"

"Well, John, I can't stop and talk with thee all day, it isn't likely;
but thou art such a one to tempt talk. I must be off to do something.
Good-bye, dear lad, and if thy trouble gets hard on thee and thou wants
a word of human love, thy mother always has it ready and waiting for
you--so she has!"

John watched his mother out of sight; then he locked his desk and went
about her commission. She had trusted him to find beds for thirty-four
children, and it never entered his mind that any desire of hers could
possibly be neglected. Fortunately, circumstances had gone before him
and prepared for his necessity. The mattresses were easily found and
carried to the prepared room, and the children had been nourished on
warm milk and bread, had been rolled in blankets and had gone to sleep
ere John arrived at his own home. He was half-an-hour behind time, and
Jane did not like that lost half-hour, so he expected her usual little
plaintive reproach, "You are late tonight, John." But she met him
silently, slipped her hand into his and looked into his face with eyes
tender with love and dim with sorrow.

"Did you see those little children from Metwold, John?"

"No, my dear. Mother told me about them."

"Your mother is a good woman, John. I saw her today bathing babies that
looked as if they had never been washed since they were born. Oh, how
they smiled lying in the warm water! And how tenderly she rubbed them
and fed them and rocked t