d was to read a sentence in turn and try to explain its
meaning in a few words. The portion that fell to little Ruth was this:

"_The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much._"

She stumbled over the two longer words, but she gave her comment
clearly enough in her childish voice.

"That means if we obey Him, God will do anything we ask, I suppose."

The father nodded. "Right, my child. If we keep the commandments our
prayers are sure of an answer. But remember that the people in the
first part of the chapter have no such promise."

There was an unusual fervour in the prayer which closed the worship
that night. Nathaniel North seemed to be putting his arms around the
family to shield them from some unseen danger. The children, whose
thoughts had wandered a little, while he was remembering the Jews and
the heathen and the missionaries, in the customary phrases, felt their
hearts dimly moved when he asked that his house might be kept from the
power of darkness and the ravening wolves of sin, kept in unbroken
purity and peace, holy and undefiled. The potent sincerity of his love
came upon them. They believed with his faith; they consented with his
will.

At the supper-table there was pleasant talk about books and school
work and games and the plan to make a skating-pond in one of the lower
fields that could be flooded after the snow had fallen. Nathaniel
North, with all his strictness, was very near to his children; he
wished to increase and to share their rightful happiness; he wanted
them to be separate from the world but not from him. It was when they
were talking of the coming school exhibition that Ruth dropped her
little surprise into the conversation.

"Father," she said, "will Uncle Abel be here then? Oh, I wish he would
come. I want to see him ever so much!"

He looked at her with astonishment for a moment. Esther and Daniel
exchanged glances of dismay. They did not know what was coming. A
serious rebuke from their father was not an easy thing to face. But
when he spoke there was no rebuke in his voice.

"Children," he said, "it is strange that one of you should speak to me
of my brother Abel when I have never spoken of him to you. But it is
only natural, after all, and I should have foreseen it and been more
frank with you. Have other people told you of him?"

"Oh, yes," they cried, with sparkling looks, but the father's face
grew darker as he noticed their eagerness.

"Let me explai