“How kindly thoughtful of you, dear Jim!”
The curate laughed.
“There! there! I shall not break my heart for your absence this one night, Hetty, my dear. I shall sleep too soundly. And the arrangement is on no account to be a perpetual one.”
Elspeth, having cleared away the tea table, was called in, and the evening worship was offered earlier than usual.
Mr. Campbell in the course of his devotions prayed for the safe return of the poor widow’s son. This he had always done morning and evening since Elspeth had been living with the family.
It was a great comfort to the poor mother, who one day said to Mrs. Campbell:
“No minister ever prayed for my poor lad to come back before. Now the minister prays for him, I know he will come. I see it a’ as plain as if my eyes were opened; the maister’s prayer goes straight up to the Throne; the Lord receives it, and sends its spirit straight down to my boy’s heart, wherever he may be on the footstool; and he will feel it a-drawing and a-drawing of him until he turns his steps homeward. I know it! And, oh! mem, the one that kept me from going crazy with the trouble was the thought that go where he would, he wouldn’t get out of the Lord’s world; and if I didn’t know where he was, the Lord did; and if I couldn’t see him, the Lord could. So I prayed for him, and by the Lord’s help kept up.”
When the prayers were over the little family circle separated.
Elspeth went back to her kitchen to wash up her dishes.
Hetty and Jennie kissed the husband and father good-night and went up to a spacious, white-draped chamber which was over the parlor, and where a fine sea coal fire was burning; and there they went to rest.