The eyes of the minister's wife had sparkled with interest as she listened to what had happened to McKee, and the minister was satisfied when at the conclusion of the incident she said quietly, "I am so sorry Colonel Monteith fell in the creek. Ask him up for dinner to-morrow, or some day soon. I'll do my very best to show my appreciation of his well-meaning defence of our John."
THE VALENTINE
Some weeks later John procured a position in a distant city. Ruth and her father went to the station to bid him farewell, the latter assuring him of the unfailing interest of his friends at the Manse, and uttering a few words of counsel, now that distance would prevent the frequent visits of the past.
For a while all went well, and encouraging reports reached the village Manse. Sometimes the letter was addressed to the Minister, but oftener to Ruth, and all of them revealed the strong hold the little one had upon the reforming man.
Then came word of dull times and scarcity of work and loneliness. It was after a letter that revealed unusual despondency, that an urgent invitation was sent for John to return to the village and spend a few weeks at the Manse until labour conditions improved.
No answer came to this invitation, but two weeks later a letter came from John's boarding-house, which read as follows:—
"Dear Sir,—I take the liberty of writing you, because there is a Mr. Gage boarding at my place, and he is real sick and don't seem to have no friends near here, and I can't take care of him no longer. He says you are his best friend, and so I thought you would tell me what to do, as he hasn't got no money, and I am a hard-working woman and can't afford to do without it. He ought to go to the Hospital, I guess, but he don't take to the notion. Please do something right away.—Mrs. JOHN McCAUL, 14, St. Lawrence Lane."
The following morning the minister started for the city, and late that afternoon stood at the door of No. 14, St. Lawrence Lane. The lane consisted of a long, monotonous row of dingy little houses on the one side, and a miscellaneous group of stables and sheds on the other. Factory buildings, with their "insolent towers that sprawl to the sky," overtowered the whole, shutting out much light, and pouring forth from their immense chimneys the smoke that usually hung like a pall over the narrow lane.
Mrs. McCaul was greatly relieved by the presence of the minister, and as they sat in the ventilation-proof parlour she told him of John's hard luck, interspersing most of her family history in the narration. "He's terrible discouraged," she added, "and the doctor says he'd oughter be in some more cheerfuller place, although I'm doing the best I can."
It was a poorly furnished dark bedroom into which the minister was ushered, and the surroundings of the whole place reminded him of a popular description of certain American city boarding-houses, which are said to "furnish all the facilities for dying."