ands
have had other work to do than holding a pen and making letters that a
wise little girl like her would think all right. I couldn't either put
into words just what I want to say. It a'n't much that I would say,
neither, but a kind of letting out how I set all the world by her, and
want her to be just so much better than other folks as I am worse.
Something would slip in that shouldn't, if I was to try; I know there
would. But you can write for me. You would know just how to put it. She
says she yearns after me when I'm gone, and would be so full of joy if
she could once have a letter from me, all her own, to read over and over
when she can't throw her arms round my neck and put her little loving
face close up to mine. Will you write for me, boy, something for the
dear girl to read over, and think the right kind of a father is talking
to her, a man she wouldn't be ashamed of before the company her mother
keeps _up there_?"

The last words were spoken reverently, and formed a strange contrast to
much that had gone before. We have omitted the oaths and rough
expletives with which Derry interlarded his speech. There is the taint
of sin even in the repetition of such language.

Blair Robertson had listened with a throbbing heart and tearful eye to
the sailor's story. It seemed to him that God had not quite cast off one
who had such a tender care for the happiness and purity of his child.
Blair gently laid his slender hand on Derry's brawny fingers, and looked
up earnestly into his face as he said, "Why can't you be just such a
father, Derry?"

Derry laughed a sorrowful, derisive laugh, and then said almost
fiercely, "You don't know me, lad. It would chill your very blood to
know what I've done, and where I've been. There are spots on me that
nothing can wash out. I've grown into it, boy. It's my life. I'm hard
and tough, soul and body. There's no making me over. I'm spoiled in the
grain. I tell you it's too late. I a'n't a father for her to know. I
can't be made into one. That a'n't what I came here to talk about. Will
you write my letter, that's the question?"

"Certainly I will write for you in the way that seems to me the best.
But, Derry, 'there is a fountain opened for sin and all uncleanness.'
'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.' 'If any man be in
Christ Jesus, he is a _new creature_; old things have passed away.'
'With God all things are possible.' 'Christ Jesus came into the world to
save s