Her soft eyes answered him.
"And there is something else. I want to tell you that your precious words bore good fruit after many days. My dear child," drawing her closer to him until the silken curls swept his cheek, "I owe you more than I can ever express, ever pay. It was your sweet, simple daily life, and your unconscious heroism that first led me to think. I have heard hundreds of sermons, and had hosts of religious friends, but nothing ever touched me like your gentle firmness that night so long ago at my brother's, and your rare modesty afterward, and all your straightforward course, even when it involved pain and sacrifice. I can't exactly tell you how the truth and the peace came to me, enabling me to do my duty to God and man; but when I was ill and helpless, and hovering on the verge of death, I want you to know that His love was infinitely precious to me. It took away all perplexity, all care and trouble, and gave me rest in the dreariest of nights. And as He suffered for us, so ought we to be willing to suffer for one another. I never realized before what a great and grand thing life was when obedience to God crowns it first of all And even out there it seemed as if I was always taking lessons of you, remembering what you had said and done."
"O no, no!" she cried, with her utmost sweet humility. "I am not worthy of so much."
"My darling friend, I think you are one of God's own messengers. Through you I have found him, come to see him as he is, a tender, loving Father."
She hardly dared to taste the rich ripe fruit gathered here to her hand. It was such a sacred work to have guided another soul ever so little, and she could scarcely believe that it had come through her.
"Are you going to keep Kathie all the afternoon?" asked a soft, pleading voice.
Both started. For many minutes they had been silently thinking of the little steps that reached to God, made so much more simple and easy by the tender spirit-leading than all the learned philosophy of the world.
"O Miss Jessie!"
"Mrs. Meredith, if you please," he exclaimed with a little laugh in his tone. "There, you have kissed enough. Come, sit down and look at me. I am afraid you will forget about my being one of our country's noble sons."