“She’s my mother,” replied Jessica, “and the Lord Jesus Christ had a mother. Oh! I’d like to see her again, and tell her about God, and Jesus Christ, and heaven. Perhaps she’d become a good woman!”
She could control herself no longer, and throwing herself on her knees before the minister’s chair she hid her face in her hands, and Daniel heard that amid her sobs she was murmuring some prayer to God for her mother. This was a new perplexity, that Jessica should wish to see her cruel and hard-hearted mother; but there was something in it which he could neither blame nor gainsay. He would rather have kept Jessica in safety at the minister’s house than have her exposed to the frequent and violent visits of the drunken woman to his own little dwelling; but if Jessica decided otherwise he would not oppose her. His house did not seem the same place without her presence in it.
“Choose for yourself, deary,” he said, very gently: “come home with me, and run the chance of your mother coming again soon; or go back to Miss Jane and Winny, who are so fond of you, and where everything is fine, and you’ll be in such good company. Choose for yourself.”
“I’ll go home with you,” said Jessica, getting up from her knees with a cheerful smile. “I couldn’t think this morning who’d sweep the kitchen, and get the breakfast. I’d rather go home with you, if you please.”
It was impossible for Daniel not to be gratified at Jessica’s choice, however troubled he might be with the idea of her mother’s disturbance of their peace; for home was not home without her. They kept very near to one another all day at their work, and it was late at night before they returned home, where they found no one sitting upon the doorsteps, as Daniel timorously expected. But their neighbor Brookes informed them that Jessica’s mother had been sobbing and crying before the closed door during a great part of the evening.
CHAPTER V.
HOW A CHRISTIAN OUGHT TO ACT.
Daniel was very anxious that Jessica should not be exposed to her mother’s violence at any time during his absence, when he would not be there to protect her from any ill-usage; and as he was almost constantly engaged with the chapel affairs for the next two or three days he and Jessica were never at home until late in the evening.
But upon Thursday night as they turned into the court Jessica’s quick eye saw a woman’s figure leaning against the door-post of their house. She stood still for an instant, clasping Daniel’s hand with close and timid grasp and then, quitting him, she ran forward, and stretching out both her hands, almost as if she wished to throw herself into her mother’s arms, she cried, “Mother! mother!”