e done, for you know I'm not exactly useless,
though I can't boast of brilliant talents, but--"

"Your talents are brilliant enough, Charlie," said his mother,
interrupting; "besides, you have been sent into this world for a
purpose, and you may be sure that you will discover what that purpose
is, and receive help to carry it out if you only ask God to guide you.
Not otherwise," she added, after a pause.

"Do you _really_ believe, mother, that _every_ one who is born into the
world is sent for a purpose, and with a specific work to do?"

"I do indeed, Charlie."

"What! all the cripples, invalids, imbeciles, even the very infants who
are born to wail out their sad lives in a few weeks, or even days?"

"Yes--all of them, without exception. To suppose the opposite, and
imagine that a wise, loving, and almighty Being would create anything
for _no_ purpose seems to me the very essence of absurdity. Our only
difficulty is that we do not always see the purpose. All things are
ours, but we must ask if we would have them."

"But I _have_ asked, mother," said the youth, with an earnest flush on
his brow. "You know I have done so often, yet a way has not been opened
up. I believe in _your_ faith, mother, but I don't quite believe in my
own. There surely must be something wrong--a screw loose somewhere."

He laid down his knife and fork, and looked out at the window with a
wistful, perplexed expression.

"How I wish," he continued, "that the lines had been laid down for the
human race more distinctly, so that we could not err!"

"And yet," responded his mother, with a peculiar look, "such lines as
_are_ obviously laid down we don't always follow. For instance, it is
written, `Ask, and it shall be given you,' and we stop there, but the
sentence does not stop: `Seek, and ye shall find' implies care and
trouble; `Knock, and it shall be opened unto you' hints at perseverance,
does it not?"

"There's something in that, mother," said Charlie, casting another
wistful glance out of the window. "Come, I will go out and `seek'! I
see Shank Leather waiting for me. We agreed to go to the shore
together, for we both like to watch the waves roaring in on a breezy day
like this."

The youth rose and began to encase his bulky frame in a great
pilot-cloth coat, each button of which might have done duty as an
afternoon tea-saucer.

"I wish you would choose any companion to walk with but young Leather,"
said the widow, with a