Mr. Marion controlled his voice with an effort, as he pointed out the way so surely and so simply that Lee could not fail to understand.
Then, with his arm still around him, he prayed; and the boy, following him step by step through that earnest prayer, groped his way to his Savior.
It was a time never to be forgotten by either Frank Marion or Lee. They lay awake till long after midnight, too happy even to think of sleep.
CHAPTER XIV.
HERZENRUHE.
STORY has come down to us of a cricket that, hidden away in an old oak chest, found its way to the New World in the hold of the Mayflower. When night came, and the strange loneliness of those winter wilds made the bravest heart appalled; when little children held with homesick longing to their mother's hands, and talked of England's bonny hedgerows, then the brave little cricket came out on the hearthstone; and its familiar chirp, bringing back the cheer of the happy past, comforted the children, and sang new hopes into the hearts of their elders.
With every vessel that has touched the New World's shores since that time have come these fireside voices. Whether stowed away in the ample chests of the first Virginians, or bound in the bundles of the last steerage passengers just landed at Castle Garden, some quaint custom of a distant Fatherland has always folded its wings, ready to chirp on the new hearthstone, the familiar even-song of the old.