"Yes, I do," answered Mary.
"Then would you mind asking him to come and play a little to us? It would do Tom good, I do think." Mary went up the one stair—all that now divided them, and found the musician with his sister—his half-sister she was.
"I thought we should have you in upon us!" said Ann. "Joe thinks he can play so as nobody can hear him; and I was fool enough to let him try. I am sorry."
"I am glad," rejoined Mary, "and am come to ask him down stairs; for Mrs. Helmer and I think it will do her husband good to hear him. He is very fond of music."
"Much help music will be to him, poor young man!" said Ann, scornfully.
"Wouldn't you give a sick man a flower, even if it only made him a little happier for a moment with its scent and its loveliness?" asked Mary.
"No, I wouldn't. It would only be to help the deceitful heart to be more desperately wicked."
I will not continue the conversation, although they did a little longer. Ann's father had been a preacher among the followers of Whitefield, and Ann was a follower of her father. She laid hold upon the garment of a hard master, a tyrannical God. Happy he who has learned the gospel according to Jesus, as reported by John—that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all! Happy he who finds God his refuge from all the lies that are told for him, and in his name! But it is love that saves, and not opinion that damns; and let the Master himself deal with the weeds in his garden as with the tares in his field.
"I read my Bible a good deal," said Mary, at last, "but I never found one of those things you say in it."
"That's because you were never taught to look for them," said Ann.