ake it;
and now it looked doubly desolate, as the scorched figure of the old
collier lay motionless on the low, comfortless, curtainless bed. A dip
in an old wine bottle standing on a box threw a gloomy light on the
disfigured features, which looked almost unearthly in the clear
moonlight which struggled with the miserable twinkling of the feeble
candle, and fell just across the bed. Betty sat gazing at her father,
full of anxious and sorrowful thoughts. How solemn the contrast between
the stillness of that sick-chamber and the Babel of eager tongues in the
house below! She felt unspeakably wretched, and yet there was a sense
of rebuke in her conscience, for she knew how great a mercy it was that
her father's life was spared. She sighed deeply, and then, suddenly
rising quietly, she lifted the lid of the box, and brought out a well-
worn Bible. She was not much of a scholar, but she could make out a
verse or a passage in the Holy Book with a little pains. She had put
her mark against favourite passages, and now she turned to some of
these.

"`Come, unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.'"

She paused on each word, uttering it half aloud, as she travelled
carefully from one line to another.

"Ah, that's what I want," she said to herself, but in an audible
whisper. "It means, Come to Jesus, I know."

She turned over several more leaves, and then she read again, and rather
louder,--

"`Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts
and minds, through Christ Jesus.'

"Oh yes, I must do so myself; I must tell the Lord all my trouble; my
heart'll be lighter, when I've told it all to him."

She stopped, and put the book aside, resting her head on her hands. She
was startled by hearing her father say,--

"It's very good. Read on, Betty, my lass."

"Oh, fayther, I didn't think you could hear me! What shall I read?"

"Read about some poor sinner like me, that got his sins pardoned by
Jesus Christ."

"I can't justly say where it is, fayther; but I know there's one place
where it tells of a sinful man as had his sins pardoned by Jesus Christ,
even when he hung upon the cross. I know well it was when the Lord were
a-dying. Ah, here it is;" and she read,--

"`And one of the malefactors which were hanged raile