She hesitated, her colour coming and going under the strain of excited emotion.
"I'll try," she said at last. "She says it don't matter what words we use, as long as they come from the heart. God can read our heart, and He will understand."
So she knelt down, and Michael bent beside her, whilst in broken, childish utterance, the very quaintness of which seemed to prove its sincerity, she asked the loving Father to spare the life of little Margery. And Michael prayed too, breathing forth what was perhaps the first true prayer of his life. The prayer seemed to bring the assurance of its answer. There were tears in the eyes of each as they rose; but God's comfort was in their hearts. The girl said not a word as Michael shook hands with her; but when she quitted the house and walked quickly homeward her heart was filled with a strange wonder not unmixed with joy.
[CHAPTER XI]
MUTUAL CONFESSION
WHEN Michael rose the next day, he found to his satisfaction that the wind had changed. It no longer blew from the north-east. There was a soft, spring-like feeling in the air. It was time for Spring to herald her approach. The winter had been long and hard. No one felt more pleasure at the thought of its departure than did Michael Betts.
He opened his shop betimes on this fair morning, and then set to work to put things in order there. He felt very weak as he did so. More than once he dropped the heavy volumes he tried to lift. It was clear he was not the man he had been. No, he was beginning to fail. And then he thought with a smile and a sigh of the little fair-haired maiden who had thought him "so very old." He was very anxious to know how this morning found her. He kept hoping that the girl whose acquaintance he had made in so strange a manner would come in to tell him how the little sufferer was; but she did not come, and at last, unable to wait longer, he sent Mrs. Wiggins round to the house to make inquiries.
The news she brought cheered him greatly. She had been told that the little girl had taken a turn for the better, and there now seemed hope of her recovery.
"Thank God!" ejaculated old Michael.
He could not trust himself to say more. He felt so glad that he could have cried like a child for very gladness. As it was he had to take off his spectacles and wipe them very carefully more than once before he could go on with his work.