“Couldn’t we pray to God,” suggested Jessica, again, “now, before we go on any farther?”
“Maybe it would be the best thing to do,” agreed Daniel, rising from his chair and kneeling down with Jessica beside him. At first he attempted to pray like some of the church-members at the weekly prayer-meeting, in set and formal phrases; but he felt that if he wished to obtain any real blessing he must ask for it in simple and childlike words, as if speaking face to face with his Heavenly Father; and this was the prayer he made, after freeing himself from the ceremonial etiquette of the prayer-meetings:
“Lord, thou knowest that Jessica’s mother is come back, and what a drunken and disorderly woman she is, and we don’t know what to do with her, and the minister cannot give us his advice. Sometimes I’m afraid I love my money too much yet, but, Lord, if it’s that, or anything else that’s hard in my heart, so as to hinder me from doing what the Saviour, Jesus Christ, would do if he was in my place, I pray thee to take it away, and make me see clearly what my Christian duty is. Dear Lord, I beseech thee, keep both me and Jessica from evil.”
Daniel rose from his knees a good deal relieved and lightened in spirit. He had simply, with the heart of a child, laid his petition before God; and now he felt that it was God’s part to direct him. Jessica herself seemed brighter, for if the matter had been laid in God’s hands she felt that it was certain to come out all right in the end.
They went back to their work in the chapel, and though it was melancholy to remember that their own minister would be absent from the pulpit on the Sunday which was drawing near, they felt satisfied with the thought that God knew all, and was making all things work together for the good of those who loved him.
CHAPTER VII.
A BUSY DAY FOR DANIEL.
Daniel went home with Jessica, still disturbed a little with the dread of finding his unwelcome visitor awaiting their arrival; but she was not there, and there was no interruption to their quiet evening together, though both of them started and looked towards the door at every sound of a footstep in the court.
After they had had their tea, and while Jessica was putting away the tea-things in the kitchen, Daniel unlocked his desk, and took out his receipts for the money he had out on interest. Since he had adopted Jessica he had not added much to his savings; for besides the cost of her maintenance there had also been the expenses of housekeeping. In former times he had scarcely cared how uncomfortable his lodgings were, provided that they were cheap; and he had found that to have a tidy and comfortable house of his own involved a great outlay of money.