"Many's the time I've longed and prayed for his forgiveness," she said sadly, "for I was a bad girl, sir, and wilfully disobeyed him. The misery my marriage brought me, I cannot tell you, and I don't wish to speak ill of the dead. My husband turned out as my father told me he would, only I wouldn't listen to him, and that's why I've been ashamed to write to him. If I had, I don't suppose it would have been any good, for father was always hard and unforgiving."
"He may have been once, but that he certainly is not now. He is a sincere Christian, and I am certain if you appealed to him he would assist you!"
"Father a Christian!" she exclaimed in accents of amazement.
"Indeed he is. I do not know how the change came about, but it is a fact. Write to him, and await results."
With this advice Jim Blewett departed, and Mrs. Blundell returned to her children, who were full of eager questions about the grandfather of whom they had never heard before; and the mother smiled almost hopefully as she answered, for the news she had heard had considerably lightened her heart.
"To think that father, who was always so hard and stern, should be a Christian!" she thought; "although I don't know why it should be so wonderful after all. It is God's work, and marvellous in our eyes because we can't understand how He brings things to pass. What a Christmas this has been! To think the children's 'kind gentleman' should turn out to be 'little Master Jim,' as we used to call him. I knew him at once; he has his father's kind eyes, and yet, he reminds me of his mother too!"
Meanwhile, Jim Blewett had returned to his lodgings, his mind full of the visit he had just paid. The evident poverty and want of Mrs. Blundell and her children appealed forcibly to his sympathy, and he could not help contrasting the anxious, careworn mother with the handsome girl he remembered as Dinah Mudford. He recalled having heard that old John Mudford's daughter had made an unfortunate marriage, and he thought it more than likely that the father knew nothing of his daughter's position.
"I've a great mind to write to the old man myself," he thought. "It may do some good, and I do not see that it can possibly do any harm. Poor woman! She needs help badly, and who should give it if not her father? That little sick girl, too! I've a notion something might be done for her!"
To think was to act with Jim Blewett, and sitting down, he drew pen, ink, and paper towards him. His pen flew swiftly over the paper, and in ten minutes he had plainly stated the circumstances of the case, and boldly said he considered it was John Mudford's duty to provide for his widowed daughter and her children.
Having finished his letter, he went out and posted it.