m one day, "I suppose you know that you are about
the same to me as a son."

"I hope so," said James, kindly.

"Well, well, you'll go to college next week, and none o' y'r keepin'
school to get along. I've got enough to bring you safe out--that is, if
you'll be _car'ful_ and _stiddy_."

James knew the heart too well to refuse a favor in which the poor old
man's mind was comforting itself. He had the self-command to abstain
from any extraordinary expressions of gratitude, but took it kindly, as
a matter of course.

"Dear Grace," said he to her, the last evening before he left home, "I
am changed; we both are altered since we first knew each other; and now
I am going to be gone a long time, but I am sure----"

He stopped to arrange his thoughts.

"Yes, you may be sure of all those things that you wish to say, and
cannot," said Grace.

"Thank you," said James; then, looking thoughtfully, he added, "God help
me. I believe I have mind enough to be what I mean to; but whatever I am
or have shall be given to God and my fellow-men; and then, Grace, your
brother in heaven will rejoice over me."

"I believe he does _now_," said Grace. "God bless you, James; I don't
know what would have become of us if you had not been here."

"Yes, you will live to be like him, and to do even more good," she
added, her face brightening as she spoke, till James thought she really
must be right.

* * * * *

It was five years after this that James was spoken of as an eloquent and
successful minister in the state of C., and was settled in one of its
most thriving villages. Late one autumn evening, a tall, bony,
hard-favored man was observed making his way into the outskirts of the
place.

"Halloa, there!" he called to a man over the other side of a fence;
"what town is this 'ere?"

"It's Farmington, sir."

"Well, I want to know if you know any thing of a boy of mine that lives
here?"

"A boy of yours? Who?"

"Why, I've got a boy here, that's livin' _on the town_, and I thought
I'd jest look him up."

"I don't know any boy that is living on the town. What's his name?"

"Why," said the old man, pushing his hat off from his forehead, "I
believe they call him James Benton."

"James Benton! Why, that is our minister's name!"

"O, wal, I believe he _is_ the minister, come to think on't. He's a boy
o' mine, though. Where does he live?"

"In that white house that you see set back from the road there