The greatest change, however, was in Tryphosa Harte. You would scarcely have believed the quiet, happy face at the end of the seat was the same, Say had seen peering so disagreeably over the roof of the old house. The sour, ugly mouth was almost always smiling now; the fierce, scowling eyes were full of eager desire; the loud, coarse voice low and gentle, and her whole bearing so subdued and yet so thoroughly in earnest it was a comfort to look at her.
“Why, I really like Tryphosa,” said Jenny King, walking home one day beside Miss Marvin; “she is as different as can be. Don’t it seem queer, rather, she should become a Christian right away, and Sue Sherman and Nettie Rand and me, who’ve been talked to all our lives and know exactly what we ought to do, never get a bit nearer, as I see?”
“It’s the old story over and over, away back to the Jews and Ninevites,” said Miss Marvin, smiling rather sadly.
“The Jews and Ninevites?” repeated Jenny inquiringly.
“Yes; you remember, don’t you, that when God sent his servant Jonah to reprove the people of Nineveh they repented at once, and prayed to God for help; but when God sent his own Son to the Jews, his chosen people, who had been ‘talked to’ all their lives by his prophets and his providences, and who ‘knew exactly what they ought to do’ when the promised Messiah came, they refused to listen, they didn’t want to believe; and ‘publicans and harlots went into the kingdom’ before them.”
“But, Miss Marvin,” began Jenny hesitatingly, “don’t you think such folks—like Tryphosa, she was so dreadfully wicked—ought—I mean, need it more than—than—”
“Good people, like you and me, who never do anything selfish or unkind or hateful,” said Miss Marvin, smiling. “Perhaps; only the apostle Paul, one of the best men I ever heard of,—a brave, upright, moral man, before he became a Christian,—called himself the “chief of sinners”; and if—”
Turning a corner they came suddenly upon a group of boys,—Tom Lawrence, who had just been taunting Dick with some of his old scrapes, and Dick, who, in a blaze of passion, had been uttering oath after oath.
“There’s your model Sabbath-School scholar!” Will Carter had sneeringly said.
Miss Marvin appeared to have heard nothing of all this; she spoke to them all pleasantly. Dick slunk hurriedly away; Tom disappeared no less rapidly, followed by the others boys of his set; Say Ellis called to Jenny from across the street, and Will Carter was left to walk along with Miss Marvin.