d, grannie; let me make up the fire, and get you a
cup of tea; let me."

Mrs. Skinner said nothing, but she shivered, and leaned her head
against the back of the chair.

Bet instantly made her preparations, and the kettle was soon boiling,
and the cup of tea ready. The crackling of the wood, and the sudden
blaze, seemed to thaw poor Mrs. Skinner mentally and bodily.

"You are a good girl," she said; "go to bed now."

As Bet was leaving the kitchen she looked back, and saw her grandmother
with her head bowed on her hands, and heard a low, sobbing cry. The
hardly-wrung tears of old age, the painful, difficult sobs of a sore
and seared heart, how sad they are! Bet did not return to her
grandmother, but, softly closing the door, left her, saying to herself--

"When I'm bad, and crying my heart out, I don't like to be watched. I
dare say grannie is like me."

Then, faithful and loyal-hearted, she climbed the narrow stairs, and
lay down this time to hear no disturbance till the morning dawned.

There are moments when the soul is brought, as it were, into the very
presence of the all-loving Saviour of the lost. In the silent watches
of that night the words which had been spoken by a child had a strange
and unwonted power.

"Grannie," little Joy had said--"Grannie, God is Love; and as He loves
us and forgives us, we'll love and forgive one another, won't we? and
we'll be so happy together--you, and I, and mother, and Uncle Bobo, and
dear Goody."

"Happy! No, I shall never be happy," Mrs. Skinner had replied. Little
Miss Joy was disappointed; but she quietly said:

"Yes, you _will_, if you make other folks happy, grannie. _That's the
secret_."

Was it indeed the secret? Again and again, like a breath of heaven,
gentle and subtle, an influence unknown before seemed to touch Mrs.
Skinner's heart in those solemn, lonely hours as she sat pondering over
the sad, sad past.

The Holy Spirit had convinced her of sin, and she was turning by that
divine power from darkness to a glimmering of light. When the grey,
cold dawn of the autumn morning crept through the chinks of the
shutters, she went softly to her room, and lay down with the relief a
tired labourer feels who has laid down a heavy burden he has borne
through the long hot day. That burden was the burden of harsh,
unforgiving judgment and remorse. It had been rolled away, like that
of one of old, at the foot of the cross--the cross of Him who, in the
pa