Hagar wiped her eyes. "'Spects dere's no need ob answerin' dat question," said she, quietly; "when de Lord's wid ye, dar ain't nobody gwine to 'vent yer workin' good, nohow."
"But I don't know how to begin," said Noll, "even if I could do anything. There's so much to be done, and I've nothing to do with. And I'm afraid that Uncle Richard will forbid me to do anything about it. Ho doesn't want me to go to Culm, he says, and he dislikes the Culm people."
Hagar did not know what consolation to offer for this unfavorable prospect. She could not counsel the boy to disobey his uncle's commands, neither did she accept the idea of having Noll's projects defeated for lack of permission to carry them out.
"Don' know, honey," said she, after a long meditation; "can't tell ye nuffin 'bout dat, nohow. But jes' go right on wid yer plans, an' de Lord'll find a way fur ye. He ken do it,—he ken do it, chile."
But the question was not settled in Noll's mind. It was not a thing to be undertaken without much deliberation, and, as yet, only the vaguest of schemes floated through his mind. He wished to aid, he longed to be doing something of the work that was to be done, but there did not seem to be the smallest prospect of a commencement.
Christmas came and went. The eve was not an unpleasant one to Noll, though he remembered all too well what a blithe evening the last Christmas-eve had been, and could not help thinking yearningly of the dear friends gathered merrily together across the sea, and wonder whether he was missed from the throng, as he sat by the fire all the solitary evening.
