ad for reply, and, going to a press at the other end of
the large, vault-like kitchen, brought me some milk in a basin, and
some oatcake upon a platter, saying,

"It's not my house, you see, or I would have something better to set
before the minister's son."

I was glad of any food however, and it was well for me that I ate
heartily. I had got quite warm also before my father stepped into the
kitchen, very solemn, and stood up with his back to the fire. The old
woman set him a chair, but he neither sat down nor accepted the
refreshment which she humbly offered him.

"We must be going," he objected, "for it looks stormy, and the sooner
we set out the better."

"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stop the night," she said, "for I
couldn't make you comfortable. There's nothing fit to offer you in the
house, and there's not a bed that's been slept in for I don't know how
long."

"Never mind," said my father cheerfully. "The moon is up already, and
we shall get home I trust before the snow begins to fall. Will you
tell the man to get the horses out?"

When she returned from taking the message, she came up to my father
and said, in a loud whisper,

"Is he in a bad way, sir?"

"He is dying," answered my father.

[Illustration]

"I know that," she returned. "He'll be gone before the morning. But
that's not what I meant. Is he in a bad way for the other world?
That's what I meant, sir."

"Well, my good woman, after a life like his, we are only too glad to
remember what our Lord told us--not to judge. I do think he is ashamed
and sorry for his past life. But it's not the wrong he has done in
former time that stands half so much in his way as his present
fondness for what he counts his own. It seems like to break his heart
to leave all his little bits of property--particularly the money he
has saved; and yet he has some hope that Jesus Christ will be kind
enough to pardon him. I am afraid he will find himself very miserable
though, when he has not one scrap left to call his own--not a
pocket-knife even."

"It's dreadful to think of him flying through the air on a night like
this," said she.

"My good woman," returned my father, "we know nothing about where or
how the departed spirit exists after it has left the body. But it
seems to me just as dreadful to be without God in the world, as to be
without him anywhere else. Let us pray for him that God may be with
him wherever he is."

So saying, my father knelt down, an