"It certainly would. You chop a tree in two and it falls; that's cause and effect. If you ask God to make it stand up after it's cut in two, and it does stand, that's a miracle."
"You are the queerest boy," she commented. "I ran over here just for a minute to ask how your mother is, and you won't tell me."
"I'm coming to that," he rejoined gravely. "But I wanted to get this other thing straightened out first. Now tell me this: did you pray for my mother last night, like you said you would?"
Once again he was offending the guardian of the inner shrines, and her heightened color was not all the reflection of the ruddy firelight.
"You can be so barbarously personal when you try, Tom," she protested. And then she added: "But I did."
"Well, the miracle was wrought. Early this morning mother came to herself and asked for something to eat. Doctor Williams has been here, and now he tells us all the things he wouldn't tell us before. It was some little clot in one of the veins or arteries of the brain, and nine times out of ten there is no hope."
"O Tom!—and she will get well again?"
"She has more chances to-day of getting well than she had last night of dying—so the doctor says. But it's a miracle, just the same."
"I'm so glad! And now I really must go home." And she got up.
"No, sit down; I'm not through with you yet. I want to know what you think about promises."