"How are you to-day, Job?" he cried, with his great, strong, energetic lungs.
"Ah! my kind friends!" said Job, rubbing his hands, "I wish I could run to welcome you; but you will excuse me, and come in."
He spoke in his usual soft and subdued voice. He was sitting on his bench, with the window looking out upon the west behind him; and his bald pate and prominent ears were clearly defined, with a picturesque effect, upon the crimson background of the fiery sunset clouds.
"We're too many of us, Brother Job," said the old clergyman, with a smile of sympathetic pleasure: "perhaps you would not like to see us all in your little shop at once?"
"The more the better, bless you!" rejoined the soldier shoemaker, in a sort of glow; "only I'm sorry we haven't chairs enough for all of you."
"Never mind chairs," observed Father Brighthopes, taking Mrs. Bowen's hand, as she was arranging what available seats there were, with her customary melancholy air. "And how are you to-day, sister?"
"I'm pretty well for me," answered the poor woman, in her broken voice. "But we've been hard pushed for means this week; and, besides, since Margaret has been to Mr. Royden's, my other darter has been wo'se, and everything has come upon me."
"Yes; she's had a rather hard time on 't," put in Job, mildly, and with a faint smile. "But she does remarkable, that woman does, my friends—remarkable! She means to make the best of everything."
"He! he! he!" laughed the grandmother, starting up in the corner, and drawing the blanket around her. "That was a chicken-pie not to be ashamed of," she mumbled, in shrill tones, between her toothless gums. "I han't tasted nothing like it these forty year. Our company was wet and hungry enough when they got there; and you'd better believe that 'ere pie had a relish!"
"Bygones, bygones!" whispered Job, touching his forehead, with a tender glance at the old woman. "You mustn't mind her, my friends: we never do. She is a nice old lady, but all out of date, and very deaf."