bad case if they
had no other protection than such as they can find for themselves; so I
don't see, Jessie, that any of us can do more for him than we are doing,
that is, praying heartily for him. As I always say, it's a blessed
thing that we can do that for ourselves and others, though we can do
nothing else for our own or their help."

Jessie did trust to God, but her trial was hard to bear notwithstanding.
Still it made her throw herself more than she might otherwise have done
on His fatherly care, and she felt her heart lightened in a way she had
not supposed possible. She had abundance of occupation; for Mrs
Treviss was accustomed to take in needlework, to assist her limited
means, and as her eyesight had of late become dim, Jessie endeavoured to
relieve her by labouring with redoubled diligence.

Kind-hearted Captain Mudge seldom came to the cottage without some
welcome present, which he said he had received as a gift from a brother
skipper just returned from a foreign voyage. One day it was a Dutch
cheese, another a few pounds of choice tea, or a box of dried fruit or
some bottles of wine, and so on. One day, when the package was larger
than would have been becoming for him, master of the good brig _Amity_,
to carry through the streets, he was followed by a boy wheeling it along
in a barrow. The lad, who was dressed in a neat sailor-like costume,
set it down in the passage and was going away, when Jessie recognised,
in spite of his changed appearance, her young tatterdemalion boatman,
Peter Puddle. "What, Peter, I scarcely knew you again," she said. "You
must stop and have something to eat."

"Thank ye, miss, I'm not hungry, as I used to be," he answered, in a
tone of satisfaction. "Captain Mudge has taken me aboard the _Amity_,
and I get as much grub as I want, though I shouldn't mind a bit of bread
and cheese, thank you."

Jessie invited Peter into the kitchen and placed before him a loaf of
bread and some cheese, to which, notwithstanding his assertion, he did
ample justice. She observed that he had improved in his manners as well
as in his appearance. Before beginning to eat, he said grace exactly in
the words the captain used and in the same tone. He told her that
Captain Mudge had given him an outfit, and was teaching him to read and
say his prayers, and was ever so kind in all sorts of ways. "Oh, miss,
there isn't no one like him," he added. "And only to think if I'd gone
off at once that